Aims and objectives
Give a brief description of why you chose the field of study, what you hoped to learn, why you chose a particular institution. How did this process work out for you? Institution
In your own words describe the institution (university, medical center, clinic) where your training took place. Identify key departments and personnel. This is to
give the reader a perspective of the institution in relationship to your elective training experience. So keep it relevant. DO NOT cut and paste the internet description from a website. Of course, the website could be helpful for history, number, size and other factual details, but you need to give the reader your sense of the institution. You can reference a link to the institutions website if the reader wants to know more. Keep in mind, some of the readers may be next years CMHS elective students.
Elective Clinical Setting
Describe the Learning/Working environment. What department, your
supervisor. How were the schedule of rounds organized and your experiences? Who were some colleagues, technicians, labs, etc? Brief overview of the kinds of patients you worked with.
Subheadings to organize the Elective
You may want to organize the Elective Details into subheadings to keep it
clear for the reader. Note the location of a subheading. Suggested subheadings might include special considerations of your elective training program. You should include at least the following subheadings.
• The Rounds
• Exemplary Case-Typical Case
• Duties of the Elective Medical Student
• Ethical Considerations
Role of Assuming More “Physician” Responsibilities
Explain what new skills you needed to gain. What management issues did
you take on? How did you feel about being more responsible? In what areas did you manage your responsibilities exceptionally well or poorly? How would you do it differently? Advice to other students about assuming responsibility.
Academic Achievement
What did you learn in terms of anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, surgery, biochemistry, radiology, etc? How did the elective training boost your academic career? Will this help you in the future? What new techniques or tools have you added to your skill set? What medications are you now familiar with? For
medications, you may want to include an appendix in the back of this report with names, doses, routes, indications, precautions of groups of medications for future students.
Personal Growth
Reflect back on your learning experiences not only in the clinical setting but the whole living abroad experience. Use clear examples with explanation. How did your Elective help your medical undergraduate career; e.g., a deeper understanding of life; it allowed you a better understanding of communicable diseases; etc. Did your studies affect your future career intentions? Were there any ethical concerns during your elective? Can you pinpoint any “Life changing moments” –negative, positive or embarrassing? What challenges (small or large) did you encounter? How did you handle them? Were there patients you dealt with that had a changing affect on you? Discuss specifically “Me in another country”. What new friends/ colleagues did you make? How did you handle personal responsibilities cooking, transport, home care, managing money, dealing with local people.
Conclusion
Go back to the “Aims and Objectives” introduction section of the paper.
Explain how you met or did not meet the aims and objectives of your elective training. Reflect here and look to the future. Where do you go from here? How can you make the best use of the elective experience? How can your experience be of use to other students considering an elective training experience? Any regrets? Any plans for the future for you?
Acknowledgements
Be sure to give credit to those who made your elective possible and helped it to be a success for you.
Appendix
You may want to append extra information or images here.
Images/ Pictures
Make sure your images are dated, labeled to include a name to describe the picture, who or what is in it, why you include this image. You might want to organize a section for Clinical images and one for Personal Images.
Hyperlinks/References
You may want to include some hyperlinks or reference details so the reader
can seek out more information for themselves. Be sure to clearly give details of what might be found by going to the hyperlink.
Tables and charts.
You may want to list medications commonly used in your elective.
Be sure to explain the relevance of the medications to the clinical setting: patient, diagnosis, etc.