- All electives must be approved by the program director AND the medical education office. It is the responsibility of the individual to do this prior taking the elective.
- Depending upon service requirements of the various sections, the number of elective months are variable from year to year. They could range from none to 4 months over the 4 years.
- Residents in the 5 year program will be allotted an extra 3 months of elective time relative to the rest of their batch colleagues.
- Residents are expected to specify their elective rotations at the start of the academic year before the schedule for that year is finalized. Every attempt will be made to have another resident on service along with the resident on elective. This will enable the resident on elective to focus on his area of interest. There may be times, however, when this may not be entirely possible or when the other resident on service takes vacation. At such times, the resident on elective will be expected to function as the sole resident and do what is required by the attending on service.
- Duties and responsibilities during the elective month are THE SAME as they are at other times on that service e.g. a resident on elective in Chest will be expected to read the plain ICU films/ OP films if required by the attending on service for the day; resident on elective in neuro will be expected to do PMMR if so required; resident on angio elective will be expected to take call if required etc. etc. Electives are to be treated as rotations where the residents feel they need extra experience and not as rotations where there are no clinical responsibilities.
- A maximum of one month can be used as "research elective". This will require advance notice and a note of support from the faculty who is supervising the research.