A Better Idea of AICM Semester

One of the students of MD4 got in contact with the SJSM students who is in AICM; so far we got an idea of how AICM is going to be. The schedule shows that we are basically in the front lines of clinical treatments in the hospital because we will be watching everything live.  The schedule is something like this:

9 AM – 1 PM
USMLE Step 1 Review – First Aid Book is the outlines

1PM – 2 PM
BREAK

2 PM – 8 PM
Rotations

And we get 2 on-call shifts during the week. That means we cannot leave the hospital and we get called anytime of the day, even at 3 AM in the morning. I heard we have to sleep in the doctor’s lounge when we want to sleep, but it’s not going to be the regular 8 hours of sleep I guarantee you that. So overall we’re getting a little taste of residency but without getting involved.

Dress Code
I don’t know about the girls but for the guys we have to wear dress shirt and tie, basically the whole formal wear. And we have to wear it 5 days a week. The only time we wear scrubs is during our on-call shifts.

The schedule looks pretty intense since it looks as if we’re in the hospital all day. Someone also said that you have rotation only 8 weeks out of the 16 weeks but I could be wrong. However, if that’s the case then I’ll have time to study for USMLE Step 1 in the 8 weeks when I don’t have rotations. I’ll be honest I cannot study in the classroom with an instructor lecturing me. I have to sit down in a silent room with a book and read the materials myself.

One thing I’m happy about is, these 16 weeks counts for the 96 weeks of rotations we have to complete in order to get our MD degree from SJSM. And when we review for USMLE Step 1, it counts for our rotation weeks, which is just great. Although, I’m not too excited about staying in Chicago, because I heard during the months of January to mid-March the weather is pretty bad. Chicago gets a lot of snow during those months. My Canadian classmates won’t have a problem though since they’re used to the snow and cold but I’m from a Southern state where snow comes one time every 3 years. And in the South if we even get one inch of snow all our schools close, but in Chicago one inch of snow is like rain drops. Go figure, it’s all good, let’s see how it goes.