Courses

The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular term. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the MyBU Student Portal for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

BU Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine Required Courses

• MED MD 503: Pediatric Cardiology
  One student will be a member of the cardiology consult team, and will assist in the evaluation, screening and management of patients with known or potential cardiac disease. The student will write initial consult and follow-up notes. Students may explore specialty consult services (e.g., adults with congenital heart disease, cardiac transplantation) for a portion of their rotation. Students are expected to improve ones consultation skills, read pediatric EKG’s, and attend an array of didactic sessions covering a wide range of topics in pediatric cardiology. No call is required.
• MED MD 504: Pediatric Nutrition
  The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends that physicians provide nutrition counseling and referral as a standard part of their practice and as a strategy for primary prevention of disease. The Pediatric Department at Boston Medical Center serves a diverse and underserved inner city population with high rates of nutritional related diseases including vitamin D and iron deficiencies, failure to thrive, failure to initiate or continue breastfeeding, and overweight / obesity. The purpose of this evidence-based elective is to increase the nutrition knowledge, attitudes and counseling skills of medical students through hands-on, case-based training in pediatric nutrition and weight management, as well as participation in pediatric nutrition conferences and projects. Students will have the opportunity to work with dietitians, physicians, mental health providers, and lactation consultants, individually and within multidisciplinary teams. They will be exposed to the nutritional management of patients who are enrolled in a variety of programs including the Pediatric Nutrition Support Service, the Nutrition and Fitness for Life (NFL) program, the Grow clinic, Baby Steps, the Pediatric Preventive Cardiology clinic, the Pediatric Endocrine clinic and the Pediatric GI clinic. Students will also have access to other programs based on their specific interests including the Baby Cafe, the Preventive Food Pantry, and the Teaching Kitchen. While a majority of their time will be spent in clinic, students will also have outside reading and web-based modules, complete a project, receive 1-on-1 lectures based on their interests, and attend case series, grand rounds and nutrition seminars.
• MED MD 505: Pediatric Latino Patients: Language, Sensitivity and Cultural Immersion
  This pediatric-focused elective is an opportunity for students to improve their medical knowledge of pediatric medical issues, deliver pediatric primary, and improve their medical Spanish knowledge in this population. The majority of the student’s time will be spent seeing patients in the outpatient pediatric clinic at BMC with attendings who are Spanish-speaking and/or Spanish-speaking Latino origin that have a significant proportion of patients whose primary language, either for them or their parents, is Spanish. These clinics may include, but are not limited to the following pediatric settings: Gastroenterology, Neurology, Infectious Disease, Endocrinology, and Primary Care. The student will learn the initial approach for new patients as well as long-term management of chronic illnesses in the designated clinical settings. Discussions with faculty around patient care will focus both on medical management in general, but also with specific attention to elements of the social and cultural influences that affect the quality of medical services and treatment and that can enhance health outcomes for the patient and family. As a clinician, the student will develop skills of more culturally sensitive care both through observation of the approach of the experienced physicians and through active practice and feedback. Complementing the clinic experience and exposure to medical Spanish, the course will have a series of literature discussions developed to cover diverse elements of Spanish-speaking patients and Latino health, cultural awareness and sensitivity, as well as care of patients with limited English proficiency. Students interested in the elective should have a working proficiency of spoken Spanish with capability of, at a minimum, interviewing the patient, gathering pertinent information and performing a pertinent physical exam. Students lacking this level of fluency may enroll in the elective, but should have comprehension of spoken Spanish sufficient to follow the interview and interaction in Spanish between the care provider and the patient. For those interested in receiving attestation of their language proficiency to adequately interview patients in Spanish through the Hospital Interpreter Services an evaluation can be arranged beforehand for such attestation.
• MED MD 506: Pediatric Neurology
  The student will be immersed fully into the Pediatric Neurology team, constituted by Pediatric Neurology and Adult Neurology residents, rotating Pediatrics residents, and one of the staff physicians. This elective provides an opportunity to participate in all inpatient and outpatient activities of the Division of Pediatric Neurology. Students will obtain histories and examine patients seen in clinics, on the wards and in the nurseries, and will then present the case to staff. The staff will provide “hands on” instruction in neurological examination and in clinical management. Additionally, there are weekly Neuroradiology rounds at which cranial and spinal magnetic resonance imaging, cranial computerized tomography, and cranial ultrasound imaging studies are reviewed. EEG rounds are held bi-weekly. Each Friday, 2 hour-long academic sessions are held. The first portion of these Pediatric Neurology Grand Rounds include, on a rotational basis, Journal club, research topics, didactic presentations, case reviews with attending physicians, and topics in psychopharmacology. A live patient presentation and discussion of the child’s neurological disorder by a member of the Pediatric Neurology Division occurs during the second hour as the case of the week. In the course of the month, the student is expected to identify a topic to research in-depth and to present the topic as a 20 minute presentation near the end of the elective. The elective is ideally suited for the student who is interested in pediatrics. Prior completion of the BUSM rotation in adult neurology is not required.
• MED MD 507: Child Abuse Pediatrics
  The Child Abuse Pediatrics Elective is an opportunity for a 4th year medical student to gain exposure to child physical abuse, child sexual abuse, and child neglect in the Emergency Department, Primary Care, and Pediatric Inpatient settings. The elective will take place primarily at Boston Medical Center, but the student will also have various placements throughout Boston and the surrounding areas. Students are expected to work at least 40 hours per week, with most of that time being one-on-one with attending physicians, social workers, and other members of the multidisciplinary team as dictated by case load and availability during the rotation. Students will spend at least 20 hours per week in clinical placements with a minimum of two 8-hour ED shifts and one 4-hour well child clinic per week. Students will learn to communicate effectively with families regarding the sensitive issues surrounding child abuse pediatrics, while maintaining a high ethical standard, compassion, and respect for all members of the family. Students will work directly with CPT staff during 51A filings and during weekly case review so as to educate the student about the information required, the basic ethical and legal frameworks, and the specific process of filling. The student will also attend standing case review and multidisciplinary meetings throughout the month and will participate in other related activities outside Boston Medical Center. It is expected at the conclusion of this elective that the student will have an understanding of the variety of ways in which child maltreatment can present in pediatric settings, and begin to develop a repertoire of skills for approaching clinical situations in which child maltreatment is suspected.
• MED MD 508: Pediatric Internship Prep Course
  This elective will prepare students who are planning to enter a Pediatric Residency.  It is designed to build specific skills and knowledge to facilitate the transition from medical student to intern.  Students will participate in small group activities and didactic learning (see the Curriculum section for specifics).  These will take place in the Boston Medical Center Simulation Center (for procedural/simulation sessions) and the Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine (for classroom learning sessions).  BUSM IV students will be oriented to the elective on the first day of the rotation during a formal orientation session with the course directors. The expected teaching contact hours will be approximately 9a-5p on weekdays. There will be no weekend activities. The sessions will include a mixture of case-based, small-group classroom learning, as well as hands-on simulation and procedural sessions led by content-expert faculty members and procedurists. There will be no direct patient contact.
• MED MD 509: Sub-Internship: Pediatric Inpatient Medicine
  An experience in inpatient pediatric medicine during which the student will have supervised responsibilities on the pediatric ward at a level which the inpatient team judges to be commensurate with an individual student’s abilities. The student will admit and have responsibility for his/her own patients under the direction of the faculty and house staff on the inpatient service. He/she will be an integral member of the inpatient team participating in all levels of activity.
• MED MD 510: Patient Advocacy and Community-Based Resources in Clinical Medicine
  During their time at Boston Medical Center, BUSM students are allowed the unique opportunity to serve a patient population that is reportedly 70% underserved and includes patients who may be low-income, immigrants, non-English speaking, or some combination of all three. The health of these patients is often intimately tied to social, economic, or other non-biomedical circumstances, requiring their medical teams to craft a treatment plan that accommodates these social needs. While health care providers are well trained to address medical issues, this elective is designed to provide more intensive training around social determinants of health and the various ways physicians can advocate for social change to improve the lives of their patients. This elective will focus on helping medical students explore the social determinants of health and how physicians can assess and manage these social determinants of health as part of an inter-professional team. The main faculty mentor will be Dr. Megan Sandel, MD, MPH, who will meet with each student and help to coordinate the clinical setting in which the student will spend the four week block. Students will spend 50-75% of their time in this clinical setting or community based organization devoted to underserved patients (examples include Boston Healthcare for the Homeless Program; GROW clinic, or Project RESPECT Clinic). Students, in collaboration with Dr. Sandel, will choose a BMC faculty mentor at their clinical site who is invested in patient advocacy and a subject expert in the student’s area of interest. The other 25-50% of time will be spent doing an advocacy focused research or intervention project. Details of the elective must be worked out in a meeting with Dr. Sandel at least 1 month prior to the start of the elective block.
• MED MD 511: Sub-Internship: Pediatric Intensive Care
  The PICU is a multidisciplinary six bed unit caring for children and adolescents from newborns to 22 years; the sub-intern will work closely on a team with a senior pediatric resident from the Boston Combined Residency Program in Pediatrics (BCRP) and the PICU attending. The sub-I will act as the primary provider for their assigned patients. Major teaching objectives of the rotation are the pathophysiology of childhood critical illness, pediatric advanced life support (PALS), and the various types of intensive care support (i.e. forms of mechanical ventilation, critical care nutrition and coordination of care) as well as psychological and social support for patients and their families.
• MED MD 512: Pediatric Radiology
  The Radiology Elective is for the BUSM student to gain a deeper experience in a limited number of areas in radiology, based on their particular interests. This could include a variety of imaging modalities such as general radiology, CT, MRI, or ultrasound. Elective students will build upon the fundamental knowledge obtained in the general radiology Selective to better understand radiology’s role in the care of patients and to practice with image and radiologic report interpretation in their selected areas. In addition, elective students will become familiar with radiologic study selection to best answer specific clinical questions and imaging study acquisition from both the technical and patient perspectives. Course Electives include: Neuroradiology , Pediatric Radiology, Body Imaging, Breast Imaging, Musculoskeletal Imaging The elective takes place in the Department of Radiology at Boston University Medical Center. At the beginning of the elective, the student will identify an attending radiologist with whom they plan to spend the majority of their elective time with as their mentor. This radiology attending will also be responsible for completing the student’s evaluation at the end of the elective rotation. Elective students are expected to follow the Radiology Elective daily schedule which will be distributed and available on Blackboard. Through clinical observation in the imaging suites and radiology reading room, elective students will interact with patients, radiology technologists, residents, fellows and attending. Through required readings within each subspecialty, students will focus on studying on the subspecialty-specific Required Diagnoses that are assigned to each subspecialty within the Radiology elective.
• MED MD 513: Pediatric Surgery
  This elective on the Pediatric Surgical Service will provide a broad experience in the evaluation and operative management of a wide range of surgical disorders of infants and children (abdominal, thoracic, genital, transplant, trauma, endocrine). It is geared toward those with an interest in surgery, pediatrics, or both. The student’s time is split between the BMC and BCH campuses. This will allow the student to see two different practice settings at two different institutions. The BMC experience is heavily weighted towards a busy outpatient elective surgery experience, including pediatric urology, with some inpatient emergency surgery of common pediatric surgical conditions such as appendicitis, pyloric stenosis, incarcerated hernias, and intussusception. Elective operative cases are held at BMC on Mondays and Pediatric General Surgery Clinic is held at BMC on Tuesdays. Wednesdays through Fridays are then spent at Children’s in the ORs, clinics, and rounding on the floors. During the clinics, children who are seen for surgical conditions are discussed and scheduled for surgery; follow-up is provided for those who have recently undergone surgery. At Children’s, the medical student will be part of a large team, including interns, residents, fellows, nurse practitioners and faculty, that provides general and specialized surgical services to infants, children, and adolescents presenting with a wide range of congenital and acquired conditions. The students’ activities include patient evaluation, assisting in the operating room, and participating in teaching conferences and rounds. An MASensive number of conferences are held per week including grand rounds, morbidity and mortality, vascular anomalies, fetal surgery, oncology, clinical teaching rounds and several didactic lectures. Students will be exposed to and may participate in multidisciplinary patient care programs of the Department of Surgery which include: trauma, surgical critical care including MASracorporeal membrane oxygenation, vascular malformations, solid organ transplantation, fetal surgery and minimally invasive surgery. The medical student will receive teaching and supervision on the wards, in the operating room and in the pediatric emergency room. The student will assist in the operating room depending on his/her technical skills, and may be permitted to first assist or perform minor procedures with the attending. During your rotation, the fellows may assign you a case to present at Professor Rounds with Dr. Robert Shamberger, Chief of Surgery and Dr. Craig Lillehei. The purpose of this is for you to practice presenting an “unknown” to an audience while leading them through an initial presentation, differential diagnosis, lab tests, etc. Wednesday through Friday, students are encouraged to join morning sign out and rounds with the team. Morning Sign Out with the entire team starts early at 5:45am and is led by the Pediatric Surgery Chief Fellow, and all senior residents, nurse practitioners, and the Surgeon of the Week (attending SOW) are in attendance. These are fast-moving work rounds where large volumes of data are discussed. Students are encouraged but not required to attend these portions of morning rounds. Students SHOULD plan to attend SOW floor rounds on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. They should arrive at 7:30am on 10E and introduce themselves to the SOW and the nurse practitioners, who will then walk around to see all inpatient surgical patients and consults; students who are following patients may present during SOW rounds; daily patient census and OR schedules are available prior to these rounds. Students are also encouraged to attend Surgical Grand Rounds and Resident Lecture in addition to Professor Rounds and the Medical Student Lecture. All of these are held on Wednesdays at Children’s making Wednesdays primarily a non-clinical teaching day. Students may be able to attend clinic at Children’s but should anticipate most of their clinic days being held at BMC and spending the majority of their time at Children’s in the ORs and on the floors.
• MED MD 514: Sub-Internship: Pediatric Emergency Medicine
  This sub-internship in pediatric emergency medicine will provide students with experience in the direct evaluation and management of pediatric patients, ages 0-21yrs. The rotation will focus on clinical problem solving, and will emphasize skills in the differential diagnosis and treatment of acutely ill children. There is no mandatory overnight call, but students may elect to have some weekend shifts in addition to weekday shifts to complete the required complement of shifts during the rotation. Approximately half of your shifts will be during the evening hours of 3-10 pm. During a 4-week block there are 19 required shifts and during the 3-week block (block 14) there are 16 required shifts irrespective of excused absences for residency interviews. Attendance at the Department of Pediatrics conferences and twice monthly resident conferences is encouraged. At the end of their rotation, students will be required to present a case-based evidence based medicine session to evaluate their ability to interpret and incorporate the medical literature into their practice.
• MED MD 515: Pediatric Complex Care
  Pediatric Complex Care
• MED MD 520: Acute Psychiatry in Managed Care
  Bournewood Hospital, a private psychiatric hospital in the community, is a core adult inpatient training site for the residency program. This elective provides students with the opportunity to learn acute inpatient psychiatry, including patient evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment in a multidisciplinary setting. Students will learn about psychopharmacology and short-term psychotherapy management of patients with psychiatric disorders. Many patients are enrolled in managed care programs allowing students to also learn about systems of care, managed care approaches to psychiatric and substance use disorders.
• MED MD 521: Adolescent Psychiatry
  Bournewood Hospital, a private psychiatric hospital in the community, is a core inpatient adolescent training site for the residency program. This elective is an excellent opportunity to work with adolescents with psychiatric and dual diagnosis disorders in a managed care environment. Students will be members of a multidisciplinary team learning about psychopharmacology, psychotherapy, family therapy, and other treatment modalities. Students will learn about systems of care and the interface between social and educational services for adolescents.
• MED MD 522: Innovative Approaches to Community Psychiatry
  In January of 2023, Boston Medical Center became a designated Community Behavioral Health Center (CBHC) and is one of 25 CBHCs established across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to provide timely, high quality psychiatric care in the community.  The CBHC helps direct patients to a continuum of care to ensure that they have the supports necessary in order to access various forms of psychiatric treatment across various levels of care.  In addition, this elective provides an opportunity to learn more about the community based supports that are available for patients.  Students will also be exposed to the value of educating primary care providers as well as clinicians in medical specialties about the complex medical needs of psychiatrically ill patients in the community.  Students will have an opportunity to engage in population health activities which aims to identify patients who are high utilizers of emergency psychiatric services and to work with a team to create a coordinated, team based approach to meet the specific needs of these types of patients.
• MED MD 523: Addiction Psychiatry
  This elective will provide students with clinical experience in addiction problems in the outpatient service, a core training site for residents, addiction psychiatry, and addiction medicine fellows. Students will participate in substance abuse treatment with methadone maintenance patients, buprenorphine patients, and alcoholic patients with major psychiatric problems. The major goals of the elective are to improve the student’s understanding of substance use problems, associated personality and emotional disorders, assessment measures, and the behavioral, pharmacological and systems approach to problem management used in this field.
• MED MD 524: Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry
  This four week elective in Psychosomatic Medicine with Dr. Wilensky is a core training site for the residency program and the psychosomatic fellowship program. This course offers a consultation-liaison experience, with a focus on clinical work designed to enhance student’s ability to understand and appreciate the psychosocial aspects of medical illness. Emphasis will be placed on the development of interviewing techniques and differential diagnostic styles and increased responsibility for the development of brief treatment strategies. Interested students may choose to focus their clinical work in a particular area of the hospital or with a specific service. In addition, the student will be required to do research in an area of interest involving psychosomatic medicine with the development of a paper and presentation to members of the Psychosomatic Medicine team at the end of the rotation. This course is not intended solely for those interested in psychiatry as a specialty, but especially for those interested in the areas of general medicine and primary care.
• MED MD 525: Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry - VABHC West Roxbury
  Under close supervision, students in this elective will work as integral members of the consultation-liaison psychiatry service at the VA Boston Healthcare System, West Roxbury Campus. Students will evaluate and treat patients in the emergency room and acute medical setting for whom psychiatry consultation is requested. Common consultation requests include suicidality, substance intoxication or withdrawal, psychosis, delirium, depression, and capacity to make medical decisions. Students will work closely with attending psychiatrists as well as psychiatry residents, consultation-liaison psychiatry fellows, and addictions psychiatry fellows. Students will participate in daily teaching rounds and will receive additional teaching through formal didactic sessions. Students will receive individual supervision both at the bedside and in formal sessions. Students will carry up to four patients at any given time and will actively participate in daily patient care. Duty hours will be Monday through Friday, without night or weekend requirements. In addition to daily patient care, students will complete two brief, informal presentations on clinical questions related to their patients, as well as a thirty-minute formal presentation at the end of the rotation on a topic relevant to consultation-liaison psychiatry. The elective will expose students to a wide variety of psychiatric diagnoses, with a focus on how psychiatric issues interact with acute medical illness. By the end of the elective, students will show a nuanced understanding of how to perform a psychiatric consultation in the emergency room or acute medical setting and how psychiatric and medical issues affect one another, along with advanced skill in patient interviewing, oral presentations, and clinical documentation.
• MED MD 527: Emergency Psychiatry