Timeline for an organized return to Year 3 of Medical School

August: Think about whether it may be possible to return to medical school with 10-16 months (e.g. by January* of the following year).

- If so, you must enroll in and faithfully attend ICM2, which meets one Thursday a month at SBU,

OR
take and pass a simulated patient experience (supervised history and physical) next May / June.

December-January: Hold a thesis committee meeting to find out in what time frame your advisor and committee think you can finish. If it is hopeless to finish by December (or earlier, depending on your interests), then plan to meet with the committee again in a year and aim for July 1st of the following summer or later.

- If the committee and your advisor are positive, then set a date for the defense as a goal, even if it is many months in advance. This will ensure that your committee members are available when the time comes, which can otherwise be a step that causes serious delays at the last moment.

- Counting forwards, you can then plan on two weeks to revise the thesis and submit it; the re-entry date should be after this. Adding a month or two of reserve time would be prudent. If you wind up finishing early, Marilyn can usually squeeze in a small clinical elective for you to do, or you may wish to prepare better for re-entry, or take a short vacation, or there may be things you could productively do in the lab.

- Counting backwards, you will need to give your thesis to the committee two weeks before the defense, and will need 1-2 months to write it (less if you start on it at this point in January and do as much as you can).

- Keep in mind that you will spend part of June in re-entry activities – count on losing two weeks here.

- Once you have a thesis defense date, send an e-mail to the MSTP Director and Administrator, to request a specific re-entry date. We will discuss the feasibility of the date with your advisor and thesis committee chair and return a message to confirm the re-entry date or request additional discussion.

- Note – in order to participate in the electronic 3rd year clerkship selection program, you must have an approved date of intended return by March 10th. Failure to do so will mean that your clerkship schedule will be generated from available openings such as they are when you do return. Electronic registeration for 3rd year closes on 3/10th. You should receive schedules on 3/23rd.

IMPORTANT: Once the re-entry date is set, do NOT contact just Marilyn London to change the re-entry date. If it becomes increasingly clear that the thesis defense date can not be met, then the issue of timing will need to be re-addressed by discussion with Marilyn London, the advisor, committee chair, and MSTP director. A new date will be set that represents the best, new, safe, guess for completion of the PhD requirements.

Failure to comply with this rule may lead to a failing grade in a 3rd year clerkship, suspension from the program, and / or loss of stipend.

* The formal requirement for graduation is approximately 14 months of clinical training (i.e., entering as late as Feb). However, most MSTP students nationally take 16-17 months of courses (i.e., entering by mid-late Fall), and some like to have a full two years (i.e., entering July 1st). Many factors determine the best course of action and the ideal path differs for students when considered as individuals. The factors include whether the student is interested in post-graduate residency training (most are) versus basic science training; whether the student knows what type of post-graduate residency training they wish to undertake, or at least have significantly narrowed down the choices; and how well the student performed in their first two years of medical school and on the Step I exam, which will affect their competitiveness for top-ranked residency programs. Students with strong academic records who know what type of residency they wish to pursue can safely enter on the later side. Students with weaker records or who wish to determine their clinical career path after experiencing most of all of the 3rd year courses should plan to enter on the earlier

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"Version:January 18, 2008. This version supersedes all previous versions."