Internal Medicine LIC Everett WA

Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship

A central component of medical education is completing a clerkship in the final years of study to gain hands-on clinical experience. The Washington State University Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine employs an innovative model of clinical training called the Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship (LIC). In the third year of the MD program, all students complete a 46-week LIC to gain the clinical skills, knowledge, and empathy necessary to succeed as residents and practicing physicians.

How It Works

The LIC is a novel approach to structuring clinical learning that was developed to address shortcomings of the traditional block clerkship model. While only five accredited U.S. medical schools reported having LICs in 2000, we are proud to be one of 44 progressive medical schools that adopted the model by 2015, supported by our faculty LIC experts.

In a traditional block clerkship, students focus on one discipline at a time in a short rotation of a few weeks before switching to a new discipline. This has several disadvantages, including preventing students from fostering meaningful relationships with patients and preceptors over time and making it difficult for students to develop clinical skills in multiple specialties throughout the year.

By contrast, in an LIC students are exposed to multiple disciplines simultaneously for the duration of the year. Each discipline is integrated into students’ weekly schedule rather than occurring in successive blocks. This enables students to form and maintain relationships with patients and clinicians, develop clinical competencies over time and across specialties, and experience a continuity of care that more closely mirrors what they will experience as residents and practicing physicians.

In the college’s community-based approach to education, students complete their LICs at one of four regional medical campuses: Everett, Spokane, Tri-Cities, or Vancouver. Practicing physicians at community clinics and hospitals serve as faculty preceptors, supervising and working alongside students. Students actively participate in patient care as members of interprofessional care teams, developing more meaningful relationships with patients as they care for a patient panel over time.

Advantages of LICs for Students and Patients

Advantages for Students

  • Participate more fully in patient care as you work alongside community providers in a range of clinical settings
  • Improve information recall and deepen clinical competencies through continuous development throughout the year
  • Develop collegial relationships with preceptors and spend more time with them throughout the year, improving your learning experience and expanding your professional network
  • Develop meaningful provider-patient relationships and cultivate empathy by following the same patients throughout the year

Advantages for Patients

  • Enjoy continuity of care and increased patient satisfaction by seeing the same health care team throughout the year
  • Receive improved care through the combined aptitude of a seasoned provider and a student with a fresh perspective
  • Help shape effective, empathetic future physicians interested in serving your community

“The structure of the longitudinal clerkship sustains students’ patient-centeredness. They understand their patients’ experience of care and come to know them as individuals instead of as illnesses to be diagnosed and treated.”

Ann N. Poncelet, MD, Karen E. Hauer, MD, and Bridget O’Brien, PhD, “The Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship,” AMA Journal of Ethics, 2009