Medical Student Education

When you train with our faculty, we’ll augment your understanding of urology, providing you with essential knowledge that you’ll tap throughout your career.

The Department of Urology conducts a comprehensive program in undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate medical education. These academic endeavors are directed towards clinical and research activities, emphasizing correlates between basic sciences and clinical problems. Clinical facilities of the following hospitals are utilized for these activities: Buffalo General Medical Center, Children's Hospital of Buffalo, Erie County Medical Center, Millard Fillmore Hospital, and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center.  

The goals of a rotation through urology are to familiarize students with the principles of diagnosis and management of common urologic disorders. Students are integrated as fully participating members of the urology team at the individual institution to which they are assigned. Students, therefore, participate in clinical rounds, the diagnostic evaluation of patients, operative procedures and clinics. It is anticipated that students will develop skills in the evaluation of imaging studies and gain an introduction to the various diagnostic techniques, including endoscopy, sonography, CT scans and MRI.

The common goals of each of the rotations are as follows:

  • Students will be integrated as fully participating members of the urology team at the institution to which they rotate.
  • Students will participate in clinical rounds, operative procedure, patient evaluations, clinics and post-operative care, and will be expected to attend all departmental-wide teaching and clinical conferences and rounds, as well as those conferences specific to their particular institution.
  • During their rotation, the students are encouraged to correlate clinical with pathologic findings.
  • At the conclusion of the rotation it is anticipated that students will have developed an understanding of the various domains of urology and to become familiar with at least the initial stages of a urologic evaluation.

Why Urology?

Urology is an exciting field, and you will find during your rotations that urologists are excited about what they do every day. It is a speciality that allows for physicians to develop clinical and surgical skills and is advancing rapidly with new technologies and treatments. The video below, Why Urology?, provided by the American Urological Association, gives you a short introduction to our field.

Courses

SUR 800 Surgical Specialties, 4 credits

This module in surgical specialties includes experience in both hospital and clinic based surgery. The course is 4 weeks in length and includes two different 2-week rotations in the choices of Anesthesiology, ENT, Neurosurgery, Ophthalmology, Orthopedic Surgery, or Urology. (Note: Ophthalmology is not offered in Blocks/Modules 1a/A or 1b/B as they do not take students those modules.)

The goal of this experience is to prepare the learner for the practice of medicine by offering an experience in the scientific basis of surgical practice and exposure to a range of surgical specialties. In this course, the learner will increase their working knowledge of the clinical practice of surgery and surgical subspecialties. The learner will be able to apply this knowledge to the patient’s complaints and design therapeutic plan.

Direct patient contact is through participation in hospital rounds, clinical practice, office practice and participation in seminars. At the onset of the course, each student is provided with a course syllabus describing the objectives and expectations (Goals Statements).  Small numbers of students are assigned to the surgical specialty services. The students are expected to attend the surgical conferences at the hospital to which they are assigned. They are expected to reach and master any assigned texts and handouts.

The Student Evaluation and Education Committee assigns the grade according to the academic status policies of the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. Grades for the clerkship are based on completion of defined goals and clinical evaluations.

Prerequisite: MS3 or MS4

Modules: A-K 
Blocks: 1-4 

No. of students: 12-16

Course Director: Molly Moore, MD

Course Coordinator: Gayle Thomson

URO 800 Subinternship in Clinical Urology, 4 credits

This rotation provides diverse experience in all of the domains of adult urology, and reflects the spectrum of urologic conditions.

Dr. Danforth, Program Director, will contact students with instructions about their rotation assignments.

Prerequisite: MS3 or MS4

Modules: A-K Blocks: 1-4

Number of students: 2

Course Director: Teresa Danforth, MD

Course Coordinator: Steve Crowe

Please direct questions to Dr. Danforth.

Elective Courses

Our electives let you pursue clinical and research experiences tailored to your interests.

Medical Student Shadowing

If you are a Jacobs School medical student and would like to request to shadow a urologist, please contact:

Program Coordinator

Steve Crowe.

Steve Crowe

Program Coordinator

Department of Urology

Buffalo General Medical Center, 100 High Street, Buffalo, NY 14203

Phone: (716) 859-3760; Fax: (716) 859-4015

Email: scrowe2@buffalo.edu