Year 2: Clinical Rotations and Professionalism

Duke‐NUS students begin their clinical rotations full‐time during their second year, a year earlier than their peers in other typical US based medical schools. Essential basic science components learnt during the first year, and clinical skills from the Practice Course become valuable when seeing patients from hospitals such as Singapore General Hospital, National Neuroscience Institute, KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital and the Institute of Mental Health.

Core Rotations

Core clerkship rotations are designed to develop students’ clinical problem‐solving skills and their ability to appropriately use resources to diagnose and treat patients. The duration of each rotation is eight weeks. Each rotation is assessed by a Continuous Assessment , rotation specific assessments, and the NBME Subject Exams.

Core rotations include:

• Medicine
• Surgery
• Pediatrics
• Obstetrics and Gynecology
• Neurology & Psychiatry

Electives

Upon completion of clerkships, students can explore subspecialties that were not covered during clerkships by taking Electives during a period of four weeks . Please refer to the List of Electives for more information. The electives are assessed by Continuous Assessment.

Clinical Cores

Each core clerkship rotation is preceded by a one-week clinical core. These interdisciplinary short courses include one week of orientation to the clinical year, four clinical cores and one research core during the second year. Students return to discuss more integrative topics such as Patient Safety, Radiology, Geriatrics/Palliative Care, Critical Care Medicine and Alternative Medicine.

Practice Course 2

During Practice Course 2, we extend the skills needed for the practice of medicine from the clerkships’ biological end to the BioPsychoSocioEthicoLegal spectrum. Clinical case scenarios are the cornerstone for our reasoning (cultural competence, ethical and legal analysis, and reasoning) and problem solving (communication and negotiation) skills. Standardized Patient (SP) interviews allow for practice and improvement of communication and interpersonal skills.

In addition to the NBME Shelf Exams required for the core rotations, the required standardized exams at the end of Year 2 include the Comprehensive Basic Science Exam (CBSE), the Foundations of Medicine (FOM) exam, and the Y2 Clinical Performance Exam (Y2 CPX)

Contact email for Year 2: teamlead@duke-nus.edu.sg