medical course year 4

Overview Learning objectives Lectures General Practice component Recommended reading

OVERVIEW

The goal of the General Practice module is to give the student the opportunity to develop knowledge, skills and attitudes that will enable her/him to:

• Identify, assess and manage patient’s physical and psychological problems within their social context

• Enhance his/her personal skills in the fields of clinical care and communication.

The  table below shows the learning objectives for the module.  They are written in the form of clear statements of what each student should be able to do at the end of the module.  There are two slots left free for the student to write in their own personal objective for each semester. The next column shows the domain to which each objective belongs. These are divided in to knowledge, skills and attitudes according to the Irish Medical Council’s guidelines ¹. The specific teaching / learning activity planned to achieve each objective is then shown. Each objective is appropriately assessed and the specific assessment procedure for each objective is listed last.

¹ The Medical Council Statement on Education 1997. Medical Council, Dublin 1997.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Lectures

The year begins at the end of August with the whole of the class receiving two weeks of lectures from the disciplines of Psychiatry, Paediatrics, OBGYN, Ophthalmology, ENT and General Practice.

The class is then divided into four (about twenty five students in each group) and all students rotate through the following four modules: Psychiatry, Paediatrics, OBGYN and General Practice /ENT once in Semester 1 and again in Semester 2. Each rotation lasts four weeks.   

Lectures, from the above disciplines, also take place on the afternoons of the first two weeks of each module in Semester 1 only. 

General Practice component

The General Practice component occupies the last three weeks of the General Practice/ ENT module. The three weeks comprises a two week clinical placement in General Practice and one week of in-house small group teaching.  The new curriculum is systems based with a greater focus on students’ development as professional practitioners and an increased use of self directed learning formats. 

Semester 1 introduces the principles and organisation of general practice, builds on the students’ clinical and procedural skills and knowledge of chronic disease in general practice.

Semester 2 focuses on developing patient management skills including a general practice approach to history taking and physical examination; therapeutic skills and an awareness of the features of case management.

Recommended Reading

The recommended textbook for the course is the Oxford Handbook of General Practice. Chantal Simon, Hazel Everitt, Francoise van Dorp. Oxford University Press. 

Reference books:

Khott A. & Polmear A.  2006.  Practical General Practice: Guidelines for Effective Clinical Management.  Fifth Edition.  Butterworth Heinemann.  ISBN 9780 7506 88673.

Robin Fraser (Editor) 1999. Clinical Method - A general practice approach. Butterworth Heinemann, ISBN 07506 40057.

Ian R McWhinney 1997. A textbook of family medicine. Oxford, ISBN 0195111518

Peter Skrabanek, James McCormick 1990. Follies and fallacies in medicine. Tarragon Press, ISBN 1 870781 023

David Sackett, Brian Hayes, Peter Tugwell 1991 Clinical epidemiology: a basic science for clinical medicine. Little Brown, ISBN 0 316 76595 3

David Pendleton, Theo Schofield, Peter Tate, Peter Havelock The consultation: an approach to learning and teaching. ISBN 0 19 261349 9

• Disclaimer
• Privacy
• Copyright
• Accessibility