GENERAL PRACTICE AND CLINICAL MEDICINE - 2021/2

Module Overview

Students will be on clinical placements in a designated, HEKSS-selected general practice for the 6 week GP attachment. In the latter half of the module, 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 medicine (5 weeks), a placement which overlaps into module 8 (4 weeks).

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

Module Availability

Year long

Prerequisites / Co-requisites

A student has to complete module 7 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 primary and secondary care medicine settings, building on knowledge, skills and attitudes acquired from year 1 and year 2 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

Alternative Assessment

N/A

Assessment Strategy

The assessment strategy is designed to provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate progression in three domains of learning:

• 
  Knowledge and Applied Knowledge of clinical medicine and the basic biosciences that underpin clinical medicine
  


• 
  Clinical Skills, in both core procedural skills, and consulting with patients
  


• 
  Professional Behaviour
  

Because this is an integrated course, many of the learning outcomes listed above are tested by more than one type of assessment method.

Knowledge and applied knowledge will be tested mainly by the SBA paper, Clinical skills by the Clinical Skills log, and Professional Behaviour by the eportfolio.

The OSCE examination at the end of module 8 tests across the clinical learning for year 2, and the assessment strategy has been designed in this way (rather than testing a few stations at the end of each module in year 2) because students need to be prepared to take the 16 station OSCE that is part of the national licensing examination following their graduation with a Diploma in Physician Associate Studies.

Students will receive frequent formative assessment, with rapid feedback and remediation as needed. This will take place at the end of each section of the module, i.e induction, and the end of each Case.

At the end of the module, students will need to show that they have attained the learning outcomes for module 7.

Thus, the summative assessment for this module consists of:

1. 
   50 questions from a 100 question Single Best Answer (SBA7) paper at the end of year 2 (2 hour paper, 120 minutes). In order to pass module 7, students will need to show a mark of 50% or more in the 50 questions relating to module 7 content. This assessment comprises 75% of the mark for module 7.
   


2. 
   Pass in Professional Behaviour and Clinical Practice (PBCP) portfolio work (to include the Educational Supervisor report, clinical skills log showing satisfactory progression in designated core procedural skills, and engagement with university and placement coursework, to include case presentations, short essays and Journal Club). (This is a Pass/Fail assessment and needs to be passed in order to pass the module, but does not contribute to the module mark).
   


3. 
   The Clinical Audit Project in Primary Care (2,000 words) will be conducted and completed during the six week general practice attachment in module 7 in year 2, based on a primary care topic of the student’s choice. This assessment comprises 25% of the mark for module 7.
   

Formative assessment

Quizzes at the end of each virtual Case

Coursework as determined by module content (case studies, short essays on topical related issues in health, etc)

Clinical Skills log (formative section with feedback)

Reflective diaries and short essays based on clinical placements patient feedback (simulated and real patients)

Feedback

Students will receive rapid feedback from their frequent formative tests, and from the eportfolio marking.

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 secondary care medicine, and General Practice.
• Give students clinical experience of working in primary and secondary care settings in these disciplines, and to understand ‘patients’ journeys’ on admission to 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 in these skills.
• Develop students’ professional and reflective approach to their patients and to their clinical responsibilities as Physician Associates working with Health and Social Care Teams.
• Develop deeper understanding of people’s right in accordance with the Equality Act 2010, acting with respect towards all patients, colleagues and students, and to know how to take action to protect patients if needed.

Learning outcomes

Methods of Teaching / Learning

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 simulation 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: PASM007

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.