The End of Pre–clinicals and the Start of Clinicals

For the past year and a half, we have spent a great deal of time in the lecture theatre and in other practical sessions getting to know the human body inside and out (literally). We have studied the structures of cells, tissues and organs, how they work together, what can go wrong and how to manage it. Most of the work we’ve done up till now has been very theoretical – although WMS does a good job of integrating (or at least introducing) clinical exposure into the curriculum, we have still had to endure more Power Point than any human should have to. This is understandable, of course, as the amount of information we must absorb is just huge and the pace is quick and we need to be able to access a lot of it in the future.

The end of the autumn term also marked the conclusion of the pre-clinical phase of our curriculum. Our weeks of lectures and intense group work have morphed into something much more hands-on and practical in its delivery –and most of us our going into this period with many different emotions swirling about. It’s exciting that we’re finally going to be on wards and working with teams like proper doctors do (which of course we are not, yet). It’s a little scary that our hands are no longer going to be held quite so tightly as before – a lot of our learning is self-directed and self-managed. But it’s also very encouraging to know that we are given responsibility by the medical school (and its overseers) to manage our own education to a high degree.

From what I have heard, Warwick are quite pro-active and advanced regarding clinical exposure as compared to other medical schools around. Although (of course) all students in the country complete the same amount of clinical exposure by graduation, and all must meet the same standard, WMS introduces the exposure far earlier in our medical-school careers than many other medical schools, thus making the process of speaking to patients far less daunting than it might otherwise be. We meet several patients during the first year through a variety of means: ‘community days’, in which we meet non-hospital patients in the community with medically complex conditions; brief hospital-ward introductions and examination practice; and various other opportunities.

But now, as of Monday 4 January, we will be joining the hospitals full-time and our focus will shift to learning in the clinical environment. It’s very exciting. We’re focusing on history-taking and examination of common diseases in our first ten-week block. Although my partner and I are based on a respiratory block, the focus is not on respiratory ailments as such, but rather the basics of patient interaction from the doctor’s perspective. All of our cohort are distributed throughout the three main hospitals in the Warwickshire area, across numerous wards, but all will be following the same basic curriculum. I am very much looking forward to the transition towards becoming a member of the hospital team and putting my efforts into learning in the clinical environment.

John

Megan Earle : 06 Jan 2016 11:51 |  Tags: History Hospital John Mbchb Patients Student Wards Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem