CLINICAL MEDICINE - EMERGENCY CARE AND SURGERY - 2021/2

Module code: PASM006

Module Overview

Students will be on clinical placements in one of the four local District General Hospitals (Frimley Health, Royal Surrey County Hospital, East Surrey Hospital and Ashford and St Peter's Hospital), rotating through the clinical disciplines of Emergency Care (3 weeks), Paediatric inpatients (3 weeks) and Surgery (3 weeks). The penultimate week of module 6 is a Consolidation Week back in the University, at the end of which students will take their SBA 5&6 papers.

During their clinical placements, students will also spend one day in every three weeks in consolidation/clinical skills learning back in the university. During this time, they will learn and practice the core clinical procedural skills, continue with case based learning, concentrating on other cases from sections 1B, 2A and 2B of the ‘Matrix specification of Core Clinical Conditions for the Physician Associate’, attend seminars on Professionalism, Leadership and Teamworking, Ethics and Law, and a regular Journal Club.

Module provider

School of Health Sciences

Module Leader

DOULTON Jia (Health Sci.)

Number of Credits: 15

ECTS Credits: 7.5

Framework: FHEQ Level 7

Module cap (Maximum number of students): N/A

Overall student workload

Module Availability

Year long

Prerequisites / Co-requisites

A student has to complete module 6 before being able to sit the relevant section of the SBA at the end of the first semester in year 2.

Module content

Indicative content includes:



  • Application of the above learning outcomes to the clinical disciplines of Emergency Medicine and Surgery settings, building on knowledge, skills and attitudes acquired from year 1 of the programme


  • Students will consolidate: Professional Values

    Public Health and Epidemiology Ethical and legal issues

    Basic sciences relating to the cases in the module.

    Communication and development of interpersonal skills

    The Clinical Method – taking focussed histories and performing clinical examinations in the systems identified by the cases in the module.

    The Life-course Case-Based learning

    Pharmacology and Therapeutics

    The core procedural skills listed above


Assessment pattern

Assessment type Unit of assessment Weighting
Examination SINGLE BEST ANSWER EXAM 100
Coursework PBCP PORTFOLIO Pass/Fail

Alternative Assessment

N/A

Assessment Strategy

Module aims

  • Provide students with the opportunity to build on their learning from virtual cases and clinical experience in Primary Care from Year 1, learning to apply knowledge and skills effectively through clinical reasoning, professional judgement, and in a patient-centred manner for the management of core medical conditions in Emergency Care and General Surgery.
  • Give students clinical experience of working in secondary care settings in these disciplines, and to understand ‘patients’ journeys’ on admission to hospital. Students will follow patients admitted to hospital, clerking and making the initial medical assessment (under supervision), learning how to make differential diagnoses in situations that are sometimes complex and uncertain. They will be involved in all stages of management of their patients to their discharge from hospital.
  • Broaden students’ knowledge of patient presentations, building on those learned in Year 1.
  • Give students the opportunity to learn core procedural skills, and continue practising core procedural skills learnt in Year 1, now with ‘real’ patients, and to show competence
  • Develop students’ professional and reflective approach to their patients and to their clinical responsibilities as Physician Associates working with Health and Social Care Teams.

Learning outcomes

Attributes Developed
001 Demonstrate a comprehensive understanding and delivery of professional behaviour and probity, and an ability to maintain effective relationships with colleagues, on clinical placements and on campus. P
002 Prioritise workload, using time and resources effectively P
003 Recognise and work within the limits of their professional competence and scope of practice, and within the scope of practice of the supervising clinician T
004 Effectively and efficiently hand over responsibility to other health and social care professionals P
005 Recognise and appraise the need to manage resources in the NHS cost-effectively T
006 Participate in clinical governance activity, using evidence, guidelines and audit to benefit patient care and improve practice C
007 Demonstrate a commitment to lifelong learning T
008 Keep a log of patients seen, ensuring that core clinical conditions have been covered in the placement disciplines of emergency medicine and surgery K
009 Demonstrate the ability to maintain effective clinician-patient relationships, showing effective communication with patients and carers. T
010 Perform a tailored and holistic assessment, working with the patient and his/her carer(s) to make the best therapeutic use of the consultation and develop an appropriate management plan. C
011 Recognise and justify when to take appropriate action in safeguarding and promoting the welfare of vulnerable patients. C
012 Demonstrate how to take a patient-centred history and perform a sensitive, focussed clinical examination, tailored to the needs of the patient and the demands of the clinical situation. K
013 Perform a comprehensive mental state examination. Interpret evidence, exercise clinical judgement and manage risk: K
014 Build on learning from Year 1 cases and placements, interpreting and applying the clinical anatomy, physiology and basic sciences, as well as the clinical learning from virtual cases, to ‘real’ patient cases and settings, keeping a reflective log of selected patients and taking part in case based discussions with educational supervisors. C
015 Interpret findings from the consultation and be able to formulate a reasonable differential diagnosis, with justification for further investigations. C
016 Work safely in situations of diagnostic uncertainty when information/ data is incomplete C
017 Recognise risks to self, the team, patients and others and able to take appropriate action to eliminate/ minimise danger. T
018 Working under medical delegation clauses, determine and propose appropriate therapeutic interventions from the full range of available prescription medicines used in the clinical setting, with justification K
019 Write accurate and legible prescriptions in all clinical settings for review and signature by a supervising clinician. K
020 Show competence in performing core clinical procedures listed below, as well as those learned from Year 1 that are appropriate in these clinical placements K
021 Initiate and maintain accurate timely and relevant medical records Ethical and legal issues, Equality and Diversity: T
022 Show an understanding of patients’ rights, in accordance with legislation, policies and procedures, particularly for vulnerable groups (children, vulnerable adults eg with T
023 Maintain confidentiality, but know when confidentiality needs to be broken to keep patients or others safe. P
024 Understand how to respond to complaints Public Health T
025 Understand and be able to critique the applications of principles promoting health and preventing disease K
026 Describe genetic, environmental and social causes of, and influences on the prevention of illness and disease K
027 Critically evaluate own practice to identify learning/ developmental needs and identify and utilise learning opportunities C
028 Use evidence, guidelines and audit to benefit patient care and improve professional practice C
029 Use appropriate manual handling techniques for the situation K
030 Practice in a manner which is grounded in the underlying principles of the NHS as a patient centred service, free at the point of delivery P
031 Maintain an awareness of national and local guidelines relevant to the areas of practice in the clinical placements of this module, and of any new developments in these areas. K
032 Revise and practise clinical skills learnt in Year 1, this time on real patients under supervision, that are relevant to these clinical placements, recording progress in a Clinical Skills Log. In particular and in addition: o Cardiopulmonary resuscitation o Performing and interpreting a 12 lead ECG o Commence and manage nebulised therapy o Commence and manage oxygen therapy o Undertake appropriate strapping and splinting for common musculo-skeletal injuries o Perform fluorescein dye examination of the cornea o Remove loose foreign bodies from under lids o Undertake simple skin suturing o Be competent in the use of local anaesthetics o Interpret written prescriptions accurately o Obtain arterial blood gas o Undertake venous cannulation and set up an infusion and infusion pump P

Attributes Developed

C - Cognitive/analytical

K - Subject knowledge

T - Transferable skills

P - Professional/Practical skills

Methods of Teaching / Learning

The learning and teaching strategy:

The building of knowledge and understanding will be achieved by an integrated learning strategy following a spiral curriculum design. Following the full life course cycle of virtual cases in year 1, this design with ensure that in year 2, this learning is consolidated through a range of longer clinical placements in both primary and secondary care, to include: Paediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Acute Medicine, Surgery, Care of the Elderly, Psychiatry and General Practice.

The learning and teaching methods in year 2 will include:



  • Learning on Clinical Placements - following an apprenticeship model, students will learn how different disciplines function within the NHS, the health and social care teams that supply them, and will follow patients through the system. They will clerk, assess and manage patients, under senior medical supervision, learning about common clinical presentations, as well as the cases listed in the ‘Core Clinical Conditions’ section of the NHS Matrix Specification document for Physician Associates. They will keep a Patient log diary that will show their progress through these cases, that will be regularly reviewed by both their clinical Educational Supervisor on placement and by their Academic Tutor on campus, to ensure they are seeing a broad range of core clinical conditions.


  • Small group case based learning on campus in consolidation weeks, with independent study


  • Lectures, as per curriculum requirements


  • Clinical Anatomy and Physiology revision sessions, as per curriculum requirements


  • Clinical Skills sessions in the Simulations Suite, either on campus, or in Clinical Skills suites in the participating District General Hospitals, to consolidate consultation skills as well as core procedural skills


Indicated Lecture Hours (which may also include seminars, tutorials, workshops and other contact time) are approximate and may include in-class tests where one or more of these are an assessment on the module. In-class tests are scheduled/organised separately to taught content and will be published on to student personal timetables, where they apply to taken modules, as soon as they are finalised by central administration. This will usually be after the initial publication of the teaching timetable for the relevant semester.

Reading list

https://readinglists.surrey.ac.uk
Upon accessing the reading list, please search for the module using the module code: PASM006

Other information

This module is only available to students undertaking the Physician Associate programme.

Please note that the information detailed within this record is accurate at the time of publishing and may be subject to change. This record contains information for the most up to date version of the programme / module for the 2021/2 academic year.