Required Clerkship and Site Placement Policy

Policy Statement:

The Keck School may use a variety of clinical sites for required clerkships to optimize the breadth of clinical settings available for training and to provide students with high quality and comparable educational experiences in each discipline at all sites. These include both local (within 40 miles of HSC) and distant sites. The Keck School provides housing for the following sites: Bakersfield, Santa Barbara, and Ventura.

Policy Requirement:

Students will be notified of their specific clerkship site assignment at least four weeks prior to the first day at the site. All site assignments are final unless extenuating circumstances that warrant a change in assignment as determined by the Associate Dean for Student Affairs or designee arise after initial site assignments are made. Unanticipated circumstances may require students who were initially assigned to one location to be changed to another. Circumstances may require that students are assigned to a certain clerkship site.

Procedures:

1. Students must complete required clerkships at designated sites with formal affiliations agreements in place. Rotations arranged by individual students at non-approved locations are not allowed for required clerkships. Academic credit will not be given for non-approved clerkship rotations.
2. Students will submit their preferences through a lottery system and final track and site determinations are made by the Office of the Registrar. The Keck School reserves the right to reassign students as needed after placement based on site capacity or other factors.
3. Students will only be assigned one required clerkship at a distant site, unless an additional distant site is requested by the student.

Extenuating Circumstances for Track and Site Placement

Extenuating circumstances that may require a specific clerkship order, track or site placement, or require a student to stay in a specific geographic area must be submitted by the student in writing at the time of the initial track and/or site request. Examples of extenuating circumstances include:

1. Personal health or disability
2. Personal health or special needs of a dependent, significant other, or family member requiring student as primary caregiver (excluding pets)

In order to obtain any of the above site exemptions, the student must submit a written request to the Associate Dean for Student Affairs at or before the student submits preferences through the lottery system and prior to assignments being determined. The request must be approved by the Associate Dean for Student Affairs or designee.

Reviewed and Approved: November 20, 2024

Medical Education Executive Council