INTEGRATED CASE-BASED MEDICINE 4 - 2025/6

Module Overview

Students will be working through the final cases in the sequence that makes up Year 1, covering mental health, endocrinology and cancer presentations of illness.

In addition they will study a more complex case in an elderly patient with multiple morbidity.

The module finishes with a consolidation week prior to semester 2 assessments, which looks back across all four modules' cases and prepares students for the OSCE.

In the final four weeks of the year, students will have their first experience of secondary care in the specialties of frailty and mental health, in both hospital and community settings.

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

Semester 2

Prerequisites / Co-requisites

A student has to complete the case studies before being able to sit the relevant section of the SBA and the OSCE examinations at the end of semester 2.

Module content

Cases 14 - 16 of the sequence of cases in Year 1.

A consolidation period that brings together all that has been learned in Year 1 and places this learning with the patient firmly in the centre.

Students will learn:

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 Case-Based learning.

Pharmacology and Therapeutics.

Assessment pattern

Alternative Assessment

N/A

Assessment Strategy

The assessment strategy is designed to provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate progression in their learning 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, the portfolio and OSCE examination, and Professional Behaviour by the SBA paper, the portfolio and the OSCE examination. The OSCE examination tests across the clinical learning for Year 1, and the assessment strategy has been designed in this way (rather than testing a few stations at the end of each module in Year 1) 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. A similar OSCE examination will take place at the end of Year 2. 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, ie 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 the module.

Thus, the summative assessment for this module consists of:

• Pass in Professional Behaviour and Clinical Practice (PBCP) eportfolio (to include Tutor Report, Clinical Skills log, Team Assessment of Behaviour, Coursework). (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).


• Pass in the 10 station OSCE examination. This blueprinted exam will test across the Introduction and 16 cases in Year 1, using a blueprint to ensure sampling across the cases. Students will need to pass 7 stations or more in this examination.


• 50 questions from a 100 question Single Best Answer (SBA4) paper at the end of Year 1 (the SBA paper for this exam has as duration of ONE hour but will be taken immediately after the one hour SBA for PASM014 therefore the combined exam is a 2 hour paper, 120 minutes). In order to pass the module, students will need to show a mark of 50% or more in the 50 question SBA relating to Module content.

• 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)


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

Module aims

• Give students a basic introduction to clinical medicine as applied to the learning of common mental health, endocrine
  and cancer presentations. Towards the end of the module, a multiple morbidity case allows students to consider the
  more realistic presentation of patients, who normally present with more than one medical problem.
• Common patient presentations in these systems will be learnt, with students learning how to perform focussed histories
  and focussed clinical examinations (in particular a mental health consultation).
• Basic investigations, differential diagnoses and initial clinical management (including therapeutics) of patients presenting
  with symptoms in these systems will be taught.
• Core clinical procedures allied to these systems will be taught and practised
• Students will be able to meet real patients with conditions related to these clinical systems and reflect on what they have learnt.
• Students will have the opportunity to experience secondary care placements in hospital and community settings for the specialties of frailty and mental health
• The final section of the module will focus on a review of all the systems covered so far in Year 1, allowing students the opportunity to consolidate their learning and consider the presenting patient, rather than each system in isolation.

Learning outcomes

Methods of Teaching / Learning

The learning and teaching strategy:

The building of knowledge and understanding will be achieved by an integrated learning strategy in Year 1, centred around small group Case Based Learning, following a sequence of virtual cases. Concurrently, they will spend up to one day/ week on clinical placement in a carefully selected GP surgery, learning in the workplace and meeting patients who illustrate and add to their learning from the virtual cases. At the end of Year 1 students will have a four week placement in secondary care after their semester 2 assessments.

The learning and teaching methods include:

Small group case based learning, Lectures, Practicals, Clinical Anatomy, Clinical Skills sessions in the Simulations Suite, to learn 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: PASM015

Other information

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

The school/department of Health Sciences / Physician Associate PGDip is committed to developing graduates with strengths in Employability, Digital Capabilities, Global and Cultural Capabilities, Sustainability, and Resourcefulness and Resilience. This module is designed to allow students to develop knowledge, skills, and capabilities in the following areas:

Employability: During this module students will begin to develop their understanding of the knowledge, skills and professional attributes required to qualify as a Physician Associate.

Global and Cultural Capabilities: students will develop the skills and attitudes required to address health inequalities and perform advocacy roles. Students will be supported in reflection on their learning from placement experiences. This will include developing a person-centred and patient-centred approach

Resourcefulness and Resilience:

During this first year of the programme students will have developed high levels of active and independent learning. They will receive further support in leadership, problem solving, navigating ethical considerations and working in professional and collaborative partnership with colleagues.

Programmes this module appears in

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 2025/6 academic year.