Leader: Professor Julian Smith and Associate Professor William Sievert

Offered

Clayton Second semester (extended) 2008 (Day)
Sunway Second semester (extended) 2008 (Day)

Synopsis

MED3062 is an integrated medicine/surgery curriculum based on the four themes of the medical curriculum: personal and professional development; population, society, health and illness; foundations of medicine; and clinical skills. Evidence-based educational approaches support students in acquiring appropriate knowledge, attitudes and skills in medicine, surgery, clinical skills, evidence-based clinical practice, occupational and environmental medicine, patho-physiology, pharmacology, ethics and law. Previous learning will be extended. By the end of the semester students must be capable of undertaking history and clinical examinations of patients with straightforward conditions.

Objectives

By the end of Year 3, students are expected to be able to:

Theme 1: Personal and Professional Development

1. describe ethical and legal issues pertinent to clinical contexts;

2. articulate professional rights and responsibilities including advocacy for patients and their families;

3. demonstrate ability to work in multi-professional teams;

4. identify, develop and use strategies to meet professional and personal challenges and needs;

Theme II: Population, Society, Health and Illness

5. correctly apply principles and key steps in evidence based clinical practice;

6. demonstrate application of the principles of evidence-based medicine to the diagnosis, management and prevention of occupational and environmental disease;

7. elicit an accurate occupational and environmental history;

8. describe how to certify a patient's fitness for work;

9. effectively advise patients on the cause and prevention of the better-known occupational and environmental diseases;

10. recognise human and institutional factors relevant to risk management in health care settings;

Theme III: Foundations of Medicine

11. describe the diagnosis, management and therapy of common diseases in general internal medicine and surgery;

12. describe the pathogenesis, morphological and clinical manifestations of basis pathological processes and specific disease at the molecular, cellular, tissue, organ and whole body levels;

13. interpret clinical manifestations of disease and disease progression in terms of the underlying pathology;

14. describe commonly used diagnostic testing (clinical, laboratory and imaging) including underlying rationale for use;

15. observe, describe and interpret diseased tissue at cellular, tissue and organ levels and explain the underlying pathology;

16. describe pre-operative assessment including anaesthetics;

17. describe and demonstrate relevant operating theatre procedures;

18. describe post-operative care;

19. formulate and work through a differential diagnosis to arrive at a preferred or definitive diagnosis;

20. select and interpret laboratory and other relevant investigations are relate the results to underlying pathology;

21. describe request procedures for laboratory and other relevant investigations;

22. describe and use methods for collection of common laboratory specimens;

23. outline the contribution of the pathologist to diagnosis and patient management;

24. describe the autopsy procedure and recognise the role of the autopsy in understanding human disease;

25. describe the rational use of therapeutic drugs in general medical and surgical conditions, including mechanism of action, pharmacokinetics, indications, adverse effects and adverse interactions and adverse events for specified groups of drugs;

26. describe the pharmacological principles underlying adverse drug reactions;

Theme IV: Clinical skills

27. communicate clearly, considerately and sensitively with peers, patients, relatives, doctors, nurses,

other health care professionals and the general public;

28. conduct a patient-centred interview that is tactful, accurate, organised and problem-focused;

29. describe principles for giving information to patients (eg applied to procedural information, patient education skills);

30. conduct relevant and appropriate physical and clinical examinations;

31. describe and use clinical reasoning skills;

32. frame appropriate diagnoses/differential diagnoses in commonly presenting complaints;

33. correctly perform specified practical techniques, tasks and procedures; and

34. describe normal and abnormal reactions to illness, disability and loss.

Assessment

Assessments are continuous and will be both formative and summative. Formative assessments may include written instruments such as EMQs and short answer questions linked with PBLs together with observation of clinical skills through Mini Case Records (MCRs) and completion of a clinical skills logbook. Students will receive feedback from tutors and peers on their participation in group activities. There will be integrated content as well as theme based content in formative assessments such as pathology and evidence based clinical practice.
Students will be expected to demonstrate satisfactory performance in clinical skills activities during clinical attachments.
Objective structured clinical examinations: 30%
Extended matching questions: 30%
Observed clinical encounters: 20%
Integrated clinical appraisal activity: 10%
Group assessment: 10%
Portfolio: Satisfactory completion (Hurdle requirement for progress to Year 4).
Students must attend a minimum of 80% tutorials and clinical placements to pass this unit. OSCE+EMQ: 65%
MCRs: 25%
Theme/Continual assessment: 10%
Portfolio: Satisfactory completion (Hurdle requirement for progress to Year 4).

Contact hours

Approximately 13 hrs/week of structured teaching and learning, 10 hrs/week unstructured learning in clinical settings and 10 hrs/week self directed learning (private study).

Prerequisites

MED2031, MED2042, MED3051

Co-requisites

Must be enrolled in the MBBS or MBBS/LLB