The Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine offers clerkship opportunities to medical students. Our clerkships are designed to provide advanced junior and senior medical students with insights into the subspecialty of anesthesiology and the importance of the anesthesiologist in caring for patients prior to surgery, during surgery and during the postoperative period. Both clerkships are open to UC Davis medical students and medical students visiting from other medical schools. Visiting medical students must comply with the UC Davis externship records policies and procedures and provide required documentation.

The clerkships are hands-on and illustrate the role of the anesthesiologist in the clinical setting. Medical Students spend time in the operating rooms in the new Surgery and Emergency Services Pavilion. During the rotation, students are assigned to an individual faculty mentor to guide them and be responsible for their daily clinical activities. During the clerkship, students become familiar with the many facets of the practice of anesthesiology including the perioperative setting, pre-anesthetic evaluation, inducing and maintaining anesthesia during surgery, patient emergence from anesthesia and post anesthesia care. By the end of the rotation, it is expected that the medical student will have developed an information base allowing them to identify and manage common pre-operative concerns facing anesthesiologists and surgeons; developed an awareness and appreciation of the importance of patient safety; understand pharmacological dosing, effects, and complications related to various anesthetic techniques; acquire a basic facility with airway and ventilator manipulation; and be able to contribute substantially to the management of regional or general anesthetics under the supervision of a licensed anesthesiologist.

As the performance evaluation is based upon clinical performance, it is necessary that medical students be able to commit to the entire length of rotation unless alternative arrangements are made and approved in advance. Our clerkships are an opportunity for the medical student to gain valuable experience and knowledge of the operating room setting in a Level One trauma center and an academic institution. You will be exposed to the challenges faced by anesthesiologists and surgeons on a daily basis and how they provide excellent patient care while coping with the demands of a busy clinical setting.

You will have a daily interactive conversational lecture with a departmental faculty member. The lecture will be related to the faculty member’s expertise and will explore translating theory into clinical scenarios. Topics covered include pediatric anesthesiology, cardiac anesthesiology, anesthesiology for transplant, ambulatory anesthesiology, managing trauma patients, airway management, interpreting monitors and administering general anesthesia. You are also expected to attend the Monday afternoon lectures and the Tuesday morning lectures. The Monday morning lectures are more didactic in nature while the Tuesday morning lectures are case conferences presented by a resident.

Full size Medical Student Clerkship poster

Visiting Students Application Process

Intro to Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine

This is an introductory course to anesthesiology during the MS3 year, with the emphasis on introducing students to the field of anesthesiology and the day- to-day practice of an anesthesiologist in the perioperative setting. Students will be exposed to a wide variety of patient care scenarios surrounding perioperative care of our patients coming to the OR for surgical procedures.

The course content and learning objectives provide the student with the unique opportunity to gain experience in delivering patient care in the perioperative context. The fast-paced and goal-directed nature of the perioperative arena affords numerous opportunities to develop and improve interpersonal communication skills as well as professionalism through multidisciplinary collaboration.

Duration: 2-week rotation; Starting May 2024 - April 2025; except June, September - December 2024

Instructor of Record: David Li, M.D. and Paul Frank, M.D.

Department Course Coordinator: Cecille Del Rosario, 916-734-5028, csdelrosario@ucdavis.edu

Primary Care Multidisciplinary Pain Management

This rotation will give 3rd year TEACH-MS students an overview of the scope of Pain Medicine. During the 2-week rotation, students will become familiar with the criteria used to refer patients to the pain management service and learn to work with other specialties in the management of patients with acute and chronic pain. The rotation will offer a diverse clinical and didactic experience intended to stimulate trainees to go beyond the facts of what is known in pain management and to inquire of what is yet to be known.

Medical students can expect to be exposed to the full range of pain treatments from interventional to medical, benign to cancer, and from a medical model to behavioral rehabilitation. The training experience is substantially integrated with didactic and interactive teaching sessions focused toward both understanding basic foundations of pain management and critically reviewing the current clinical and basic science literature. Our core faculty collectively has formal training in Pain Management as well as Anesthesiology, Internal Medicine, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Psychiatry, Psychology as well as basic science research. Collaborations with almost every other service at UC Davis Medical Center offer our students an extremely diverse experience.

Pre-requisites: Completion of preclinical years and passage of Step 1

Duration: Custom rotation periods

Instructor of Record:  Naileshni Singh, M.D.

Department Course Coordinator: Mureen Darrington, 916 734-6688, mdarrington@ucdavis.edu

Anesthesiology Advanced Clinical Clerkship Student Elective

This elective is intended to broadly introduce the senior medical student to the specialty of anesthesiology in the context of perioperative medicine, spanning preoperative evaluation, intraoperative management, and immediate postoperative care. Students works directly with residents and attendings in the operating room; reasonable emphasis is placed on “hand-on” clinical work, within the limits of patient safety, time, and efficiency.

Duration: 4-week rotation, May 2024 - April 2025; except June and July 2024

Instructor of Record: David Li, M.D.

Department Course Coordinator: Cecille Del Rosario, 916-734-5028, csdelrosario@ucdavis.edu

 

Perioperative Medicine

This course will provide the student with a broad exposure to various patient care services within the Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine so that you’ll be better equipped to apply your medical knowledge to safely care for patients. The student will learn about the preoperative evaluation, basic principles of anesthesia, and management of acute postoperative pain.

Duration: 2-week starting May 2024 - April 2025; except June - August 2024

Instructor of Record: Brian Pitts, M.D.

Department Course Coordinator: Cecille Del Rosario, 916-734-5028, csdelrosario@ucdavis.edu

Perioperative Management of the Obstetric Patient

This is an anesthesia subspecialty rotation focusing on the pre-, intra- and post- operative care of patients undergoing obstetric procedures. While significant emphasis procedures and its implications on anesthesia, medical students will also follow obstetric patients throughout perioperative period with instruction from anesthesiologists, and obstetricians. Knowledge and skills obtained during the rotation are applicable to general anesthesia and regional anesthesia.

Duration: 2-week rotation starting May 2024 - April 2025; except June - August 2024

Instructor of Record: Cristina Chandler, M.D. and Andrew Taniguchi, M.D. 

Department Course Coordinator: Cecille Del Rosario, 916-734-5028, csdelrosario@ucdavis.edu

Multidisciplinary Pain Management

The clerkship offers a daily mix of formal and informal educational experiences. Since pain is a prevalent feature in treating all patients, this rotation is intended to offer training for students interested in any clinical specialty. Collaboration with almost every other service at UC Davis Medical Center offers our students an extremely diverse experience. Students will be exposed to nerve and joint block techniques such as epidural injections, sympathetic nervous system blocks (stellate ganglion blockade, lumbar sympathetic blockade and intravenous phentolamine), facet blockade, as well as sacroiliac joint injections and intravenous lidocaine infusions. The students will attend all daily didactic teaching sessions. They will be directly involved with the practice of contemporary multidisciplinary pain management including acute, chronic, cancer pain, outpatient nerve blocks, and clinic.  Students will work with Attending Staff and be exposed to contemporary thinking in pain treatment from disciplines of Anesthesiology, Internal Medicine, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Psychiatry, Psychology, Neurology as well as basic science research. Students are also expected to attend all daily morning and afternoon didactic teaching sessions.

Duration: 4-week rotations starting January 2024 - November 2024 and January 2025 - May 2025

Instructor of Record: Naileshni Singh, M.D.

Department Course Coordinator: Mureen Darrington, 916 734-6688, mdarrington@ucdavis.edu

Multidisciplinary Approach to the Neurosurgical Patient

This anesthesia subspecialty rotation focuses on the perioperative care of patients undergoing neurosurgery. While significant emphasis will be given to understanding central nervous system physiology during neurosurgical procedures and its implications on anesthesia, medical students will also follow neurosurgical patients throughout the perioperative period with instruction from anesthesiologists, neurosurgeons, and neurointensivists. Knowledge and skills obtained during the rotation are applicable to general anesthesia, neurosurgery, and management in neurological intensive care settings.

Duration: 2-week rotation starting May 2024 - April 2025; except June - August 2024

Instructor of Record: Christian Bohringer, M.D.

Department Course Coordinator: Cecille Del Rosario, 916-734-5028, csdelrosario@ucdavis.edu

Assessment and Management of Spinal Pain

This Distance Learning Didactic Elective is designed to increase the competency of pre-licensure Medical Students in assessing and treating spinal pain.
This course will also review the pathophysiology, clinical assessment, and management of the following topics: lumbar spinal pain, cervical spinal pain, differential diagnosis and differentiation between sacroiliac/hip/shoulder joint pain, medication management with risk assessment, and non-pharmacological treatments including interventional pain procedures, acupuncture, and psychological support.It is designed to (a) Improve knowledge on common conditions that many types of providers will see in clinical practice. (b) Foster skills in lifelong learning by use of evidence-based medicine. (c) In-person clinical time will give students the chance to apply clinical knowledge to patient care. (d) As an asynchronous course, students are required to be responsible for coursework on their own.


Requirements: 18 hours of self-study; 6 hours of online lectures; 16 hours of in-person clinical experience; pre and post test.

Duration: 2-week rotations held from May 2024 - June 2024; July 2024 - August 2024; December 2024; and February 2025 - March 2025

IOR: Chinar Daivesh Sanghvi, M.D.

Research Electives

This elective is designed introduce medical students to research within the field of anesthesiology and provide exposure to a variety of research designs and methodologies. Students will be given the opportunity to participate in ongoing clinical or database research projects or they may pursue and design independent projects. The activities that take place during this course will vary, depending upon the student’s interest, the research project chosen and the stage in which that project stands. They may include protocol design and development, IRB application assembly and submission, patient recruitment, live or retrospective data collection, data analysis or project summary and presentation.

Duration: Custom rotation periods - 2, 4, 8 to 12 weeks longitudinal.

Instructor of Record: Neal Fleming, M.D., Ph.D.

Department Course Coordinator: Cecille Del Rosario, 916-734-5028, csdelrosario@ucdavis.edu