What is Club Med?

Military Medicine, Sep 2003 by Bingham, Brandon, Rosa, Kristina Dela, Gancayco, John, Magra, Ryan, Et al

Club Med" is the Internal Medicine Interest Group at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences (USUHS). It is a student run organization with faculty advisors that meets on a regular basis. The purposes of our organization are to acquaint students with careers in internal medicine, provide clinical and research experiences in internal medicine, and to assist students with meeting faculty mentors in internal medicine. We have started a number of new initiatives this academic year to include workshops, shadowing, an on-line discussion group, mentoring, and community outreach activities. We also welcome your suggestions on any potential new student activities for Club Med. All medical students (Tri-service HPSP and USUHS) as well as faculty members in the Department of Defense are invited to attend and participate in Club Med activities! We have a monthly noon meeting that includes a topic of student interest given by internal medicine active duty physicians from across the nation. Our monthly meetings also allow our leadership to remind students of upcoming "Club Med" activities and opportunities to include encouraging students to join the ACP-ASIM for free. Our monthly noon meeting schedule is posted on our website: http://www.lrc.usuhs.mil/cc/clubmed/clubmed.htm. Come join us to hear about career opportunities in internal medicine and to have lunch (on us)! Workshops are small group activities that provide students with a "hands-on" opportunity to learn skills commonly used by internal medicine physicians. Examples of workshops include how to perform knee arthrocentesis, how to perform and interpret pulmonary function tests and how to write a case report. Our workshop schedule is also posted on our website. http://www.lrc.usuhs. mll/cc/clubmed/clubmed.htm. You can also sign up for workshops by simply clicking on the email link from our web page and state that you want to attend. Shadowing is another new opportunity for students and involves observing internal medicine faculty physicians practicing "their trade". Opportunities include seeing patients in the internal medicine clinics and/or on the wards as well as observing internal medicine subspecialty procedures such as bronchoscopy, endoscopy and cardiac catheterization. Again, you can sign up for shadowing by clicking on email links from our website. We have also implemented an on-line discussion group that is as easy to use as email. You can access this discussion group by typing in the following web address: http://cim.usuhs.mil/clubmed or simply clicking on the link from our club med website. We have separate Army, Navy, and Air Force discussion groups as well as a Triservice discussion group. Discussion group "responses" are shown from the most to the least recent. Ht The mentoring program encourages Club Med students to pair with internal medicine mentors in the USUHS community. This opportunity gives students an avenue to integrate the diverse roles and responsibilities of being a military physician. Having a mentor during medical school can provide students with invaluable advice to help them attain professional military and medical goals. We are also in the process of organizing community outreach projects. We hope that our outreach programs will help our community as well as provide students with hands on internal medicine experience. For more information, please visit our website. Our faculty and students are dedicated to introducing you to career opportunities in internal medicine. "Club Med" is a terrific forum helping students learn about internal medicine and meeting people that can make a difference in their careers. We hope to see you at our upcoming "Club Med" events!

2Lt Brandon Bingham, USAF

ENS Kristina Dela Rosa, USN

2Lt John Gancayco, USAF

2LT Ryan Magra, USA

Maj Steve Burning (faculty advisor), USAF

CAPT (ret) Robert Goldstein (chair, USUHS Department of Medicine), USPHS