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Elective program
During their fifth year, students are allotted at least six weeks during which they involve themselves in a program entirely of their own choosing. Experience is sought across a wide range of interests including various city and rural hospital and medical practice settings in Australia, Flying Doctor, Aboriginal health and other outback experiences, Pacific- island and third-world medicine, teaching-hospital and other medical experiences in America and the UK as well as involvement in areas of medical research, computers and health economics. Scholarships are available to enable as many students as possible in their fifth year to take the option of interstate or overseas experience. Although no formal assessment is made, a written elective report is required from all students. Information about electives (eg options available inside and outside the faculty, people to contact, accommodation and costs) will be maintained by the clinical subdeans.
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Palliative care
Multidisciplinary palliative care seminars aim to enable students to deal holistically with patients who are terminally ill. Experiential learning as well as lecture-based teaching is involved in the program which consists of six one- to two-hour sessions with case studies and small group discussions being part of most of these sessions. Topics covered include principles of palliative care, psychology of illness, communicating with terminally ill patients, symptom control and bereavement.