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Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
MD Education

Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation Clerkship

During this clerkship, students are expected to be active members of their medical or rehab teams. This includes, but is not limited to, performing history and physicals, writing mandatory daily progress notes on assigned patients, attending daily rounds, attending patient therapy sessions, coordinating care with other healthcare providers and consulting physicians and performing bedside procedures with supervision.

While workload can vary from day to day and by service, all weekdays are full clinical days and should be treated as such. This rotation requires no weekend work or overnight call.

Students must attend all lectures and adhere to the attendance policy. All excused absences must be prearranged with the program director in advance. Students will be responsible for any material missed and for notifying their teams at the start of the rotation. If sick or unforeseen circumstances arise that requires missing time off of the rotation, students should notify their teams and the clerkship director as soon as possible. Any unexcused absences will be considered a professionalism issue. 

 Program Objectives (Competencies)

View current program objectives.

 Clerkship Goals & Objectives

Find comprehensive Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation Clerkship Objectives.

 Assessment

Grading Breakdown

Assessment and grading information
Clinical evaluation by the inpatient attending and resident 50%
Written exam 20%
Completion of the individualized passport 20%
Completion of patient log 5%
Functional reflection assignment 5%

Regardless of score, remediation may be required for particularly poor performance in an individual area or for professionalism issues alone.

The grading for the PMR written exam will be Pass/Fail. The clerkship will use a standard cut point and all students whose scores meet or exceed that cut point will receive full points towards their final grade.

If you have a question about your clerkships grade, please contact the clerkship director directly.

 Required Clerkship Clinical Experiences (Clerklog) & Tools

All of the following are available via the Galter Library website or Blackboard:

  • Rehabilitation in Limb Deficiency.  4.Limb Amputation. Archives of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, Vol 77 (Supplement), March 1996
  • Michael W. O’Dell, Chi-Chang David Lin, and Victoria Harrison. Stroke Rehabilitation:  Strategies to Enhance Motor Recovery. Annu. Rev. Med. 2009. 60:55-68.
  • Brendan E. Conroy, Gerben DeJong, and Susan D. Horn. Hospital-Based Stroke Rehabilitation in the United States. Top Stroke Rehabil 2009; 16(1): 34-43.
  • Kortebein P. Rehabilitation for hospital-associated deconditioning. Am J Phys Med Rehabil 2009; 88:66-77.
  • Shweickert, W. et. al. Early physical and occupational therapy in mechanically ventilated, critically ill patients: a randomised controlled trial. The Lancet, Volume 373, Issue 9678, Pages 1874 - 1882, 30 May 2009
  • Bernard S. Chang and Daniel H. Lowenstein. Practice parameter: Antiepileptic drug prophylaxis in severe traumatic brain injury: Report of the Quality Standards Subcommittee of the American Academy of Neurology. Neurology 2003; 60; 10-16.
  • Eric B Larson and Felise S. Zollman. The Effect of Sleep Medications on Cognitive Recovery from Traumatic Brain Injury. J Head Trauma Rehab 2010; vol 25, no. 1, 1-7.
  • Giaciano, J.T. et. al. The minimally conscious state: Definition and diagnostic criteria. Neurology 2002; 58; 349-353.
  • P. McCrory et. al. Consensus Statement on Concussion in Sport: the 3rd International Conference on Concussion in Sport held in Zurich, November 2008. Br. J. Sports Med. 2009;43;i76-i84.
  • Mark W. Greve and Brian J. Zink. Pathophysiology of Traumatic Brain Injury. Mount Sinai Journal of Medicine 2009 76;97-104.

 Policies & Procedures

View all policies.

For Faculty & Residents

Contacts

Dr. Leslie Rydberg
Director

Jamie Byrne
Coordinator
Phone: 312-238-2870