GENERAL PRACTICE AND ELECTIVE - 2023/4

Module code: PASM011

Module Overview

Students will be on clinical placements in a designated, HEKSS-selected general practice for the 4 week GP attachment. Students will be at one of the partner Trust hospitals for the elective period of four weeks, which is an opportunity for the student to select a clinical medical specialty of his/her own choice.

There is one Consolidation Week following the elective, following which, students will take their SBA papers, and their year 2 OSCE.

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¿.

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

Clinical Placement Hours: 131

Lecture Hours: 18

Tutorial Hours: 1

Module Availability

Semester 2

Prerequisites / Co-requisites

A student has to complete module 11 before being able to sit the relevant section of the SBA and the OSCE at the end of Year 2.

Module content

Indicative content includes:

Application of the above learning outcomes to the clinical disciplines in secondary care and the ¿elective placement¿ 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

Consolidation of all the proscribed core procedural skills

Assessment pattern

Assessment type Unit of assessment Weighting
Examination SINGLE BEST ANSWER EXAM (1 hour) 100
Practical based assessment 12 station OSCE Pass/Fail
Coursework Professional Behaviour and Clinical Practice Portfolio Pass/Fail

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 11 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 14 station OSCE that is part of the national licensing examination following their graduation with a Diploma in Physician Associate Studies.

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.
  • 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.
  • Give students the opportunity to extend their learning in a specific clinical placement of their own choice (the ¿elective¿)
  • Give students clinical experience of working in secondary care settings, 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.
  • 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 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
  • Provide an opportunity for students to consolidate their learning across Years 1 and 2 of the course prior to their end of module examinations.

Learning outcomes

Attributes Developed
001 Professional Behaviour and Probity, Teamwork and maintenance of good practice: CPT
002 Clinical Knowledge K
003 The patient relationship CT
004 Consultation skills K
005 Interpret evidence, exercise clinical judgement and manage risk CT
006 Therapeutics and prescribing K
007 Clinical procedures K
008 Documentation and information management T
009 Ethical and legal issues, Equality and Diversity PT
010 Public Health K
011 Maintenance of good practice CP
012 The NHS KP
013 Core Procedural Skills P

Attributes Developed

C - Cognitive/analytical

K - Subject knowledge

T - Transferable skills

P - Professional/Practical skills

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 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: PASM011

Other information

N/A

Programmes this module appears in

Programme Semester Classification Qualifying conditions
Physician Associate Studies PGDip 2 Core A weighted aggregate of 50% overall and a pass on the pass/fail unit of assessment is required to pass the module

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 2023/4 academic year.