Clerkship

Your third and fourth years in the DO Program at Rowan-Virtua SOM

Your Clerkship is focused on clinical education. The core principles of medical practice are taught using a combination of classroom, ambulatory and hospital settings. This is your time to enhance the techniques you have learned in the classroom, experiencing hands-on patient care, developing clinical technical skills, and serving as a member of a medical team. Highlights include:

• Clerkship Clinical Skills Course
  • Two week prep course for all students prior to the first day of clinical clerkships to ensure readiness
• Community Service Learning & Leadership 3 - a partnership with NJ AHEC and other medically underserved communities
• Geriatrics Clerkship run by our nationally-ranked NJISA
• Four week Integrated OMM and Rehabilitation Clerkship
• Transition to Residency (TTR - residency procedural “boot camp”)
• Two week Intensive Care Unit selective – ICU/NICU/PICU/SICU

BRIDGE Weeks

Both Pre-Clerkship and Clerkship years include BRIDGE weeks. These weeks occur a total of four times over the course of your medical school education: twice in the first year, once in the second year, and once in the third year.

BRIDGE week assessment activities include combinations of several core elements:

Building skills: Simulation, Procedures, POCUS

Reflecting: Self-reflection, Peer-to-Peer Evaluation

Integrating: Integrated Foundational Science Activity, Osteoptathic Integrated Exam Review, High Fidelity Simulation

Developing: SP Exam Review, Professional Identity Formation

Goal setting: Career Advising, Academic review with Coaching

Evaluating: Benchmark OSCE, Summative Standardized Patient

The BRIDGE week that occurs at the end of the clerkship year is when our Capstone OSCE occurs.

Core Clerkships (AY2026/27)

Year III

Beginning AY 2026/27, your core clerkship year will be a combination of coursework and clinical rotations in departments, including:

Community Service Learning & Leadership Family Medicine Geriatrics Internal Medicine Integrated OMM/Rehab

Obstetrics/Gynecology Pediatrics Psychiatry Elective General Surgery

There is one asynchronous longitudinal course that spans the entire year - Medical Scholarship 3. During this course, students complete their scholarly project and prepare it for submission.

All clerkship students take a one-week Health Systems Science 2 at the beginning of July.

Year IV

There are three (3) required rotations:

• Emergency Medicine - four weeks
• Two-week Intensive Care Unit selective - ICU/NICU/PICU/SICU
• Medical or Surgical Subspecialty - four weeks

Additional requirements in fourth year:

• Electives [total of 24 weeks]
• Flex Time [total of six (6) weeks] **

** Allows students greater flexibility in scheduling residency interviews, while also accommodating off-cycle electives at other institutions. It can also be used to do additional elective rotations if desired by the student.

There are two asynchronous longitudinal courses that span the fourth year - Medical Humanities and Osteopathic Practice and Principles.

Sample Clerkship Schedule

Year Three DO Program

Sample Clerkship Schedule

Year Four DO Program