ATSU-SOMA students participate in Rotation Readiness course
Posted: February 5, 2025
Third-year A.T. Still University-School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona (ATSU-SOMA) students recently returned to the University’s Mesa, Arizona, campus for Rotation Readiness, a three-day intensive course designed to ensure graduates meet their basic clinical competencies and providing them with a competitive edge for future audition rotations and residency interviews.
In 2021, ATSU-SOMA launched Residency Readiness, an innovative, fully-immersive mock residency program for fourth-year osteopathic medical students, which aims to ease the transition to residency for students after graduation.
“While the Residency Readiness program has been extremely successful and well-received by students, some of the feedback we have received over the years is that students wish they had the training earlier, in the OMS-III year, instead of just before graduation,” said Christina Weaver, DO, ’14, assistant dean, innovation and clinical curricular integration.
In response, Dr. Weaver collaborated with ATSU-SOMA faculty to develop Rotation Readiness, a program tailored for third-year students before they begin competing for residency spots. The program includes one week of online learning followed by three days of in-person activities.
Through immersive team-based patient simulations, hands-on procedural training, and focused communication workshops, students had the opportunity to refine their clinical and professional competencies.
“This robust program benefits from our years of experience with Residency Readiness,” Dr. Weaver said, adding, “The careful and deliberate integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in the development process has allowed our team of subject matter experts, faculty, and staff to work much more efficiently, focus on teaching hands-on skills, and deliver a high-quality learner experience.”
“Given ATSU-SOMA’s track record for developing innovative educational programs, this newest program will leverage technologies such as AI and augmented reality (AR) in new and exciting ways. It’s exciting to see how much we’ve accomplished and what this line of educational programming has become since that first year we started with the class of 2021,” Dr. Weaver added.
