Undergraduate Medical Education

Faculty of Medicine

Med 3 (Clerkship)

Med 3 Clerkship

Giving you hands-on, clinical experience

During the third and fourth years of the MD program (Med 3 and 4), you'll participate in a variety of clerkship experiences that provide hands-on opportunities to learn and develop clinical skills. Working directly with patients, preceptors and healthcare teams across a variety of settings.

 In Med 3, students complete clerkship through one of two models

  • Block-based Clerkship based at a central teaching site (Halifax or Saint John) with opportunities to complete select block rotations at distributed sites in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick of Price Edward Island. Available to students in the Dalhousie Medical School Nova Scotia- DMNS campus and the Dalhousie Medical School New Brunswick –DMNB campus. 
  • Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship Dalhousie (LIC): Based primarily at a distributed teaching site in Nova Scotia or New Brunswick. Available to students at all three Dalhousie Medical School campuses: DMNS, DMNB, and Cape Breton Medical Campus (CBMC). Students at CBMC complete clerkship through the LIC model reflecting the program's focus on distributed and community-based medical education.
  • Note: It is not guaranteed that your preference on clerkship style or location can be fulfilled. Relocation, housing and transportation may be required of all students.

LIC may be a good fit if you:

  • Prefer continuity with patients and preceptors over a longer period of time
  • Enjoy learning across multiple disciplines at once
  • Are interested in community-based or rural practice
  • Value longitudinal relationships and self-directed learning

Block clerkship may be a better fit if you:

  • Prefer structured rotations focused on one discipline at a time
  • Prefer schedules focused on a single clinical discipline over a defined time period

A detailed explanation of each unit is available at Starting your clerkship.

Dalhousie’s LIC sites currently include Fredericton, Miramichi, Moncton, Upper River Valley, Annapolis Valley, Antigonish, Cape Breton Regional Municipality, Cape Breton Rural (Chéticamp & Inverness), Colchester, Cumberland, Pictou, South Shore, and Southwest Nova.

* There are a finite number of longitudinal integrated clerkship spots available for students from all campuses.