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Introduction
Internship is a junior medical doctor’s first position undertaken as an initial step at the beginning of a medical career as a physician, and is compulsory regardless of whatever specialty of medicine you may wish to eventually pursue in the future.
Internship training is divided into three equal periods of four months each which includes disciplines of General medicine, General surgery, and others like Child Health or Obstetrics and Gynecology in institutions or programs approved for the purpose by the college of medicine of Sultan Qaboos university (SQU). Most of the internship rotations involve moving from one hospital to another within the country during each year. One of these three rotations must be in a peripheral hospital. This is considered a very beneficial experience of the breadth and depth of healthcare of your country
Department of medicine
Clinical services of the department are divided into ten specialty units. Each one of unit composed of one or more consultants with support of senior registrar/registrar plus a rotating senior house officer. Clinical service committee runs clinical services and internship matters are dealt by internship coordinator.
Specialty units
- Cardiology A & B
- Respiratory
- Gastroenterology & Hepatology
- Rheumatology
- Infectious diseases
- Neurology
- Nephrology
- Endocrinology
- Oncology
Unit placement
After the initial orientation of all interns the trainee will be posted through a regular placement schedule in one of the four general medicine wards.
Each rotation will be for one-month period with a total of allowed 2 weeks leave during this period.
Clinical Duties
Please note that the trainee’s clinical work encircle daily ward activities and your on call duties. You will be responsible for clerking in, admitting and managing patients under the supervision of your Sub-specialty unit seniors. As a trainee you are also required to follow up your patients and to be up to date regarding any lab investigations requested.
On call Duties
During your stay in the department of medicine you will be engaged in on call duties as part of medical on call team. You must be resident while on duty . The on call duties may vary from one in six to one in three. You will be carrying a CPR pager during these on calls and supposed to respond promptly in case of need. This general clinical training will hopefully provide you with opportunities to develop basic skills and attitudes necessary for you to embark on postgraduate specialty training.
Supervision
During each of your rotations, you should be provided with a nominated clinical supervisor by the head of the department concerned. This supervisor, who will guide you during the rotation, will be at least of consultant status, or other appropriate senior member of the department concerned.
Logbooks
Each intern will be provided with a logbook. (It’s available in the education office). Since the internship program is based on working in different hospitals, the logbook serves as a uniform guide to the basic conduct of your duties and the minimum basic skills you must acquire before you can be certified.
Advanced cardiac life support
During you internship you are required to complete a 3 day ACLS course, which is organized by the training and staff department of SQUH. You must contact the department directly to enroll in the course and you must ask your HoD well before you intend to go on the course if it is convenient. Completion of ACLS course is a requirement for the issuance of certificate of completion of internship.
Electives
Chance to have electives in a sub-specialty as approved by HoD. The choice of elective subspecialty will be restricted on the availability within the same hospital or municipality. During your elective rotations you will be required to continue the on call duties as normal.
Assessment
During the stay in department of medicine candidate will be assessed each month by the respective consultant. The HoD will give them a global assessment and feedback on performance at the end of their rotation. Failure of satisfactory completion in any rotation will require the intern to repeat part or all of the rotation. Timely submission of assessment forms /logbooks is the responsibility of the respective interns.
Assessment by the Interns
You will be asked to provide your own comments with regard to your rotations and electives. The comments should be constructive in nature, and will be used confidentially by the office of the dean, in a continual attempt to improve the nature of your postgraduate medical training.
Vacations
During your internship of one year you are entitled to take four weeks annual leave from your rotations. You may take a maximum of two weeks leave during any one rotation. The internship coordinator and HoD must approve all leaves. You may not take your Annual leave during an elective rotation.
General Advice
You must contact the head of the department concerned at least two weeks before the start of your rotation to arrange your duties, electives or leaves. Any serious difficulties during your rotations should first be addressed to your clinical supervisor, and if unresolved, to the head of the department.
Remember that attitudes are equally important to knowledge and skills
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