med school in USA

[Gauri]

I know the setup for medschool in America is different to South Africa where I am studying now. Can anyone clarify for me – please – do you do a basic 4 year undergrad and then how many years medschool? How many of those years are clinical? And then do you do one year internship? Is that what you call residency?
And is anyone doing the PBL system? (problem based learning)
Thanks – I appreciate the info…

[Chris146]

Hi Gauri,

Here in the US most medical students get an undergraduate degree usually taking 4 years to complete. You then go on to 4 years of medical school (there are some programs where you can do both undergrad & medical school in a total of 7 years instead of the normal 8). The first 2 years of medical school are basic sciences and the 3rd & 4th year are clinical rotations. When you graduate you enter a 1 year internship (which is essentially your first year of residency but just called internship) then on to residency. The length of residency depends on the field you decide on and if you want to specialize, subspecialize, etc.

Hope this helped! 🙂

[Gauri]

Thanks Chris –
That does help. All sounds clear now. Its quite different here – Im suprised. They’re even thinking of cutting down our 6 yeard degree to a 5 year degree!!
Do you do the pbl programme?

[MelissaGray]

I think that a combination of traditional and PBL is ideal. PBL alone can be unstructured enough that it is difficult to get a firm foundation of core curriculum. But when combined with traditional classes, the PBL is a wonderful way to learn how to use all of that “basic information.”

[Author]

Posts