In medical school, it is my understanding that all students specialize during the last two years. I would like to specialize in physical medicine and rehabilitation (physiatry). Do all med schools offer this during the last two years? When I look at the curricula, I see all of the clerkships from surgery to family medicine, but none of them have one that say PM&R or physiatry. Do I need to specifically find a medical school that offers this clerkship or is it a subspeciality of something that I would go into later? Thanks!
No. Medical students do not specialize. You specialize during residency. PM&R is not one of the “core clerkships” that are required of all medical students but I imagine every medical school has electives in the field (may be called traumatic brain injury or some other more specific descriptor and you might end up doing multiple more specific electives within the broader field of PM&R/physiatry). You can attend any accredited medical school and be prepared for a career in PM&R/physiatry.
For more info: http://www.aapmr.org/patients/aboutpmr/pages/faqs.aspx
Will be variations in each school (e.g. length of course or rotation, electives offered), but med school tends to be:
First two years: basic science courses, some clinical exposure;
Third year: required clinical rotations: Internal med, family med, surgery, psych, neuro, OB/gyn, peds, maybe one or more electives;
Fourth year: @ least one req Acting Internship (aka AI) in an area of your choosing, and electives of your choosing
During clinical courses req/electives is where you get taste of various areas to help you make your post med plans Residency is where education begins in choosen speciality
For additional information about PM&R and its subspecialties, see:
http://residency.wustl.edu/Choosing/SpecDesc/Pages/Psychiatry.aspx
Besides internal electives offered at your home medical school, 4th year med students often do “away rotations” in their future specialty. (IOW, in the extremely unlikely event that your home med school doesn’t offer any rehabilitation electives, you can always go elsewhere for 4 or more weeks.)
Decided to look through our elective course catalogue (not available to the public) to give you an idea of the titles of electives people interested in PM&R might do
MUSCULOSKELETAL REHAB
ELECTRODIAGNOSIS OF NEUROMUSCULAR DISORDERS
REHABILITATION OF INDIVIDUALS WITH TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY AND CEREBROVASCULAR DISORDERS
PEDIATRIC NEUROMUSCULAR REHABILITATION
REHABILITATION OF INDIVIDUALS WITH SPINAL CORD INJURY
You “specialize” somewhat by elective rotations. It has nothing to do with the difference in academic programs at various Med. Schools. Actually, if desired, students do “away” rotations. The process that you are asking is achieved thru residency. In Med. School, you just learn very basic concepts. Your actual training is during Residency. You apply to Residency in a 4th year of Med. School. And the process might be brutal for some selective residencies, much more than any competition that you have ever experienced previously.
D.O. School might be an even better pathway for Physiatry.
^^ Yeah, you are required to take OMM at all DO schools, in addition to the regular MD programs.
@JustOneDad and @artloverplus So I’ve heard. I’ve been looking into D.O. schools already. Thanks for the help everyone.