Students of St. James School of Medicine have two hospitals in Chicago to to do their core rotations: Jackson Park Hospital or Mercy Hospital.  The hospitals are 15 minute drive from each other.  The question is which one will you choose.

Mercy Hospital

• It's near South Loop
• It's a clean hospital
• It's in a safer area
• It's hard to get A's
• They sponsor J1 visas for Canadian students
• They have multiple residencies.

Jackson Park Hospital (JPH)

• It's near 75th street
• It's not so clean hospital, but they are renovating
• It's in a dangerous area, Southside Chicago
• It's easy to get A's
• They do not sponsor any visas.
• They only have Family Medicine Residency

The problem with JPH is that while doing your core rotation, there isn't much guidance there.  It's more scut work for students than actually teaching.  No doubt you will learn hands on on so many various cases, but the guidance isn't there.  The residents are also not the happiest there.

Mercy hospital has proper teachers and guidance.  They provide a lot of support to students.  If you do rotations there than you can increase your chances in getting a residency there.  The same cannot be applied to JPH, they rarely give any students, who did rotations there, a residency position.

So in order to get the benefits of both, schedule all of your core rotations at JPH and conduct all of your electives at Mercy Hospital.  The rotations you did at JPH, if you are weak on that subject, then schedule it at Mercy.  By doing this you will not only get all A's in your core rotations but you will also learn with guidance.

I hope this helps.

At Jackson Park Hospital one of the most common questions students ask is where to go. If it's your first time then you will obviously will not know where to go unless you did AICM. However, if you are from MUA, SGU, Avalon, Xavier University or any other medical school other than SJSM, you will not know where AICM room is. The places to go in Jackson Park Hospital for clinical clerkship depends on if you are doing core rotations or elective rotations. If you are doing core rotations then you go Leon Gholston or Lorraine McCrary; their offices are in the same hallway as the AICM classes, which are located in the building across the ambulance parking bay. The ambulance parking bay is in the emergency area, and it's located between the Family Medicine building and the hospital.

The red circle is pointed toward an entry way between the two buildings. You will see students going in and out from there for core rotations and AICM classes.

If you are doing electives there then you go to Rosemary Brown or Cornelius Ford or other officers in their unit, which is located in the corner of the hospital which faces diagonally to BP across the street.

The red circle is pointed towards a door that is diagonally facing BP gas station. This is where you go to for elective rotations.

The following is a video of Jackson Park Hospital. This is good introduction for the students in Bonaire and Anguilla. This is where you will do AICM 5th semester and possibly your core rotations if not at Mercy Hospital. In the video you will see some of the residents of the hospital whom you will meet when you do AICM or do your clinical clerkship; that is if you start by this year or next year.

I know this may be confusing to some but it’s very simple once you fully understand the difference. A hospital that has a residency for a certain program will have a green book status for that particular rotation. And if there are other rotations then it will fall as a blue book.

For example, for Jackson Park Hospital, it has a family medicine residency program; therefore, the family medicine rotation for medical students counts as a green book rotation. However, the internal medicine rotation at Jackson Park Hospital counts as a blue book because the hospital does not have an internal medicine residency program there. Other core rotations count in the same category such as Psychiatry, OB/GYN, Pediatrics, and Surgery.

If you want to go for Internal Medicine residency then you may want to do your Internal Medicine clerkship at Mercy Hospital instead of Jackson Park Hospital. Some residency programs prefer their applicants to do all their core rotations with a green book status; however it’s not universal so don’t worry about it. The reason I say this is that a lot of FMGs get residency programs in IM but they have no US clinical clerkship experiences. With SJSM you have 80 weeks of US clinical clerkships so that’s why you shouldn’t worry about it.  The same goes with other non SJSM Caribbean students, they have 72 weeks of US clinical clerships.

This post will highlight the core foundation of all the rotations in the 3rd and 4th year of medical school. Internal medicine (IM) is the rotation, which should not be taken lightly. According to a friend of mine, from Ross university medical school, and according to some doctors, the IM rotation in Jackson Park hospital is one of the best in Chicago. This does not mean that other rotations are as good but internal medicine rotation is one of the best. IM rotation is one of the most hands on experiences you will get if you are assigned at Jackson Park hospital. You will do all sorts of procedures and see so many things such as hernias, gangrenes, amputations, MRSA infections, lumbar punctures, etc. I have seen so many things and I learned a lot from hands on experiences. When I look at the lab I know what to look for and how to narrow down my differential diagnosis based on lab values and symptoms. Obviously, I’m not an expert in diagnosing patients but I learned a lot in the 12 weeks experience.

In Jackson Park hospital, the group of students is split up in six groups. Each group is assigned one of the 6 attending physicians and they rotate every 4 weeks. Each 4 weeks counts as a block and everyone has to have 3 blocks. The 6 physicians are Dr. Kumar, Dr. Murthy, Dr. Iyengar, Dr. Ali, Dr. Hussain, and Dr. Khan. You will be assigned three of the 6 doctors in the 12 weeks period.

Dr. Murthy

He is the medical education director and he gives a final say on your IM grade. It’s very important to get on his good side because of the letter of recommendation that he will give. He is not aggressive like other doctors but he can put you on the spot if you ask him to leave early. He is known to tell his students to “Google” everything. His students will have their smartphones battery drained after rounding with him because he expects everyone to look up answers to questions he asks. A friend of mine told me that Dr. Murthy had one student who didn’t have a smartphone, so for that Dr. Murthy told him to leave; lol.

Dr. Kumar

He is one of the hospital’s cardiologist who prefers to have 8 students per block. He is not the happiest physician you will meet, but he is extremely knowledgeable. Dr. Kumar will put his students down if they answer wrong questions. He is famous of making a large “0” with his fingers in front of the student when that student gets something wrong. And he will pronounce it in an Indian accent “jeero”

Dr. Khan

This guy you would describe him as a G. He’s ballin with great hair and a smooth way to talk. He didn’t even know me and he randomly sat me down with few other students and started giving me advice about life. He’s an easygoing doctor but he expects you to try to do some research when he asks you about a certain medical question.

Dr. Ali

He is a very polite and humble Indian doctor. All his students like him because of his gentle attitude. If you make a mistake, he will forgive you and advise you to try to avoid it next time. He is the most wanted attending physician in the internal medicine rotation because of his easygoing ways. However, sometimes he seems to be intimidated by multiple things in the hospital so he may mumble while he’s speaking.

Dr. Hussain

He is a polite physician but it is very irritating when he doesn’t show up on time. Dr. Hussain is not the best when it comes to showing up on time.  He wants everyone to send emails to him regarding what he taught for that day so they are on point on what they learned.

Dr. Iyengar

Rotation under this physician is new so I can’t say anything about him.

Presentations

The presentations in IM are so exhausting. We have to present to Dr. Kazmi and he is not the most polite or easygoing doctor you will meet. This doctor will come off as someone who will tear you apart on the first day but through the IM he calms down if you do your presentations on time. At the end of IM you will have to take a test on all the presentations you and your peers presented. The test is insanely hard because no one has time to study for it due to on-calls and rounds, which are tiring.

On-Calls

On calls are usually fun with moderate number of patients but other times it’s irritating when there are a lot of patients coming in the middle of the night. During the previous IM batch everyone had to do 24 hour on calls with breaks within those hours; however all that has changed with the new batch. Nowadays, there are 12 hour on calls which was changed by Dr. Kazmi. And if anyone intentionally is absent during presentations, then they are penalized with an extra or two on calls. It got brutal each time a new batch starts.

I hope this post helps in your preparations for Internal Medicine rotation at Jackson Park hospital. I wish someone had posted something like this before I started internal medicine, it would have helped me a lot.

Psychiatry in Jackson Park Hospital is one of a kind with a lot of inpatient exposure. Most of the patients, who stay longer than a week, are diagnosed with schizophrenia or some kind of drug overdose. You will also see patients who are found on the streets because of alcohol overdose.

After going through the psychiatry rotation I am very confident that I do not want to go into psychiatry. The reason being is that getting the proper information out of the patients is like finding a needle in a haystack. The patients are either on Haldol, so they are sedated, or they are aggressive and uncooperative.

The psych ward is located in two different sections the 4th floor of the east wing, hence 4 East, and the 4th floor of the South wing, hence 4 South. The 4 East section is the area the men are and the 4 South is the area where the women are. The separation is mandatory to restrain the patients from having any sexual conduct with each other and for their safety. Another safety protocol is that students should attend the patients in pairs. If a male medical student checks up a female patient then a female medical student is to be present and the same goes for female medical students checking up male patients.

When you go through the psych ward you see some patient in a state where you feel bad for them. And I see the hardship they went through that got them to be where they are. And what I saw made me appreciate who I am and what I have compared to the state the patients are in.

There is so much frustration during rotations. Some attending doctor hardly gives us time to do our other work that we are supposed to do in Internal Medicine rotations. It’s irritating that they keep us waiting for them for hours so we can round. Unfortunately this is the way of clinical clerkships as we have to do everything the doctor tells us to do as he/she has the final say in our grades.

I am hardly getting any time to study for my USMLE Step 2 CK. My advice, for prospective students who are going to start clinical rotations, is to start studying for Step 2 CK immediately after passing the USMLE Step 1.

I attempted to study in the hospital but with all the hectic activity that it’s so hard to. In the day room where it’s separated from the patients there are medical students walking around because doctors use them as free labor. Then there are nurses running around and yelling and then there are resident doctors who require medical students to do new H&Ps on new admissions. So it’s just pure hectic lifestyle in this 12 weeks of internal medical rotations.

If you didn’t get the memo, then here it is, in order to start AICM or further clinical clerkships SJSM students are now required to be certified in not only CPR, but also in OSHA and HIPAA. Anyways the entire cost for OSHA and HIPAA cost be about $55.  Better to know this now then later because it takes a while to complete the two courses.  And if you haven't done so, then also get CPR certified.

OSHA Blood Borne Pathogens basically deals with how to handle hazardous materials in the medical area. It basically is about what to do and what not to do in the wards. OSHA training costs me about $30 and I was certified at compliancetrainingonline.com. The OSHA training typically takes an hour with a test at the end. However, since it is painfully boring it could take up to an entire day.

Basic HIPAA certification was the more boring one out of the two because unlike OSHA training, HIPAA training didn’t have an audio reading off the page. HIPAA deals with the privacy and security of medical information of patients. HIPAA laws were created because apparently criminals can steal medical information and make fraudulent transactions since the medical information is very sensitive. The HIPAA certification costs about $25 and it can be completed at myhipaatraining.com. HIPAA certification is supposedly done in 30 minutes, but it’s also so boring so it can take up to a day with a test at the end.

Also, note that you need to be CPR level C certified to also conduct clinical clerkships. I believe the certification lasts around two years and then you have to retake the course. Jackson Park Hospital offers it for $40 per student.

If you go on craigslist and you may see postings and think to yourself it’s too good to be true. For example, I saw a posting of a one bedroom apartment on 71st street for $550 with no security deposit. And it’s couple of minutes drive to Jackson Park Hospital. First of all, it’s not a scam, you really could get a place that cheap near the hospital; however, you are compromising your safety and the safety of your car. Any place near the hospital is dangerous. Unless your car is in a garage, you are most likely going to have your car broken into.

If you are going to stay near the hospital, then stay above 60th street, around Hyde Park, or around the suburbs like around 85th street. If you are driving and if you have a non-Illinois license plate just make sure you don’t bring any attention to your car such as sparkling things or evidence of you having a GPS system anywhere in your car, or a phone charger, etc.

If you are taking public transportation, then it’s very important to go to the bus stop in groups; a group of 4 or 5 students is a good safe number. Muggers, even with a weapon, would not have the guts to mug anyone if they were in a group especially at night when you have on-call duty.

With this bad economy, plus Chicago being a very corrupt city, thieves are everywhere because they can’t get a job and they will hurt others to gain money. So for those who are settling in Chicago, be wise and choose a safe area even if you are far from the hospital.