Elective Course Description
The Urology Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center offers a medical student elective rotation in urologic oncology. The focus of the Department of Urology is the multidisciplinary diagnosis and treatment of genitourinary cancers, including those of the prostate, testis, and penis in men, as well as the kidney and bladder in men and women. Medical students will be integrated into the busy surgical services and work under the direct supervision of the attending staff, urologic oncology fellows, and urology residents. Students will be expected to make rounds in the morning, attend all didactic conferences with the staff, attend outpatient clinics, and assist attendings and fellows in the operating room.
The Urology Service has a full weekly educational program available for students to attend, including the multidisciplinary Genitourinary Oncology Grand Rounds, a weekly disease-specific didactic lecture series, a morbidity and mortality conference, a research conference, and disease-specific working groups. Students are expected to prepare and present a urologic oncology case with a complete review of the literature for Genitourinary Oncology Grand Rounds. Additional opportunities are available for students to do research work with attending staff on ongoing projects. By the end of the rotation, students are expected to have a full appreciation of the clinical characteristics and major treatment approaches to GU malignancies. Students will also gain an appreciation for the impact of treatment on a patient’s quality of life.
Learning Objectives
- At the end of the clerkship, students should be able to perform a complete history and physical examination with special attention to 5 major urological oncology diseases (bladder cancer, kidney cancer, prostate cancer, testis cancer, penile cancer).
- At the end of the clerkship, students should know the TMN staging system for the aforementioned major urological cancers.
- At the end of the clerkship, the students should know the basic laboratory and imaging work up for each of the aforementioned urological cancers.
- At the end of the clerkship, the students should know the major treatment options for each of the aforementioned clinically localized urological cancers.
