Four-Week Session
Prerequisite:
Completion of core clerkships
Rotation Coordinator:
Cynthia Dunbar, MD; Charles Bolan, MD
Rotation Description
The NIH Clinical Center (CC) is the site of intramural clinical research for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Each year, approximately 6,000 inpatients are admitted to the CC and another 105,000 individuals are seen in the CC outpatient clinics. These patients, who are enrolled in specific research protocols, may present with simple or complex hematology problems in relation to or in addition to the disease or treatment being studied. The Hematology Consult Service provides inpatient and outpatient hematologic consultation and care to any patient in the CC at the request of the patient's physicians.
The Hematology Consult service (HCS) welcomes medical students in their fourth year to a four-week clinical rotation at the NIH. The student will join the consulting team and take part in the diagnosis, treatment, and ongoing care of a wide spectrum of hematology problems occurring in patients participating in research protocols at the NIH CC. These activities frequently require extensive interaction between the HCS, the research team, and other CC specialists. A very wide range of patient hematology consultations are encountered, for example, both routine questions such as interpretation of abnormal coagulation testing in the context of planned surgery or anticoagulation in patients experiencing venous thrombosis and more specialized questions regarding hematologic manifestations of rare genetic diseases or hematologic complications of complex cell therapies such as CAR-T cells. Each case is seen and discussed with a team including a hematology fellow and a senior attending physician. Students can use the enormous resources of the NIH computer system and one of the finest medical libraries in the United States to search for information about the patients they are seeing. Weekly Hematology Consult Rounds are held and the student may present a case at these Rounds. A wide variety of other educational opportunities and teaching conferences are available to the student, including Hematology-Oncology seminars, journal club, hematology core lectures, and Medical Grand Rounds. There is no required evening or weekend duty.
Rotation Objectives
- Provide unique clinical experience of providing optimum consultative care for patients with hematology problems in a research hospital environment.
- Learn the consulting skills needed to formulate a diagnostic and therapeutic plan.
- Effectively communicate information to patient, family, physicians, and nursing staff.
- Become familiar with a variety of diagnostic tests and therapeutic interventions.
Selection of Applicants
Applicants will be selected based on review of credentials and a cover letter, which should outline their goals for the rotation and how these goals will inform their future medical training and practice. This information must be submitted via the online application. Only one student will be allowed per session. Availability may be limited due to program constraints.
Staff
- Charles Bolan, MD
- Cynthia Dunbar, MD
- Swee Lay Thein, MD/PhD
- Arun Shet, MD
- Stefan Cordes, MD/PhD