Our Intensive Clerkship in Emergency Medicine

Our Emergency Medicine clerkship is a four-week senior elective that is structured to provide medical students with an intense clinical experience in one of the busiest emergency departments and trauma centers in the United States. Students are supervised by our outstanding Emergency Medicine residents and faculty as they rotate through five different clinical areas within our large county ED. Students are expected to function at the level of a sub-intern. For guidance throughout this process, students will be paired with a senior Emergency Medicine resident and will work that resident’s shift schedule. Students are expected to work at least 120 clinical hours, half of which may be overnight shifts.

In addition to the outstanding clinical experience, we provide a robust didactic curriculum. This includes multiple small group/case based sessions, our weekly Emergency Medicine Grand Rounds, which frequently feature nationally recognized speakers, and a hands-on ultrasound workshop run by our esteemed ultrasound faculty.

Furthermore, those students who are considering emergency medicine as a specialty will receive additional mentorship and advising while on rotation with us. Each student will be assigned a faculty advisor that they will work at least one shift with. All rotators are also invited to our program director’s home for a high yield, yet laid back, advising BBQ where we get to know each rotator outside of the clinical arena.

Clerkship Rotations

All rotations are 4 weeks long.

Due to the nature of our rotation, we cannot accommodate alternative start dates or different rotation lengths.

Please note that our Emergency Medicine rotation is highly popular and commonly fills far in advance. We encourage interested applicants to apply at least 4-6 months prior to their preferred start date.

Between July and October, we generally only accept students who will be applying to Emergency Medicine for Residency

Start dates for the 2024-2025 academic year are:

July 1, 2024
July 29, 2024
August 26, 2024
September 23, 2024
November 11, 2024
January 6, 2025
February 3, 2025

Application For Rotation

All students who wish to rotate must satisfy the following:

U.S. Applicants:

  1. Apply to the Keck School of Medicine of USC Student Affairs using the AAMC Visiting Student Learning Opportunities (VSLO) program.
    • We will begin accepting applications on March 4th, 2024 with our first round of invites sent in early April.
  2. Students who wish to rotate during our visiting student sub-I season (start dates 7/1, 7/29, 8/26, 9/23) must also complete the following online application in order to be considered for a rotation spot: Online Application 

Unfortunately, we are unable to accommodate international students.

Diversity in Medicine Clerkship Award

Please also take the time to consider applying for the Diversity in Medicine Clerkship Award. This award is provided through the Keck School of Medicine with the goal of providing support for fourth year underrepresented in medicine (URiM) medical students and their allies to participate in visiting student clerkships at our institution.

Clerkship Contacts

Clerkship Director and Director of Undergraduate Medical Education

Ignacio Calles, MD

Clerkship Coordinator

Hiralda Godoy