CLINICAL MEDICAL AND SURGICAL ROTATIONS - 2025/6
Module code: PASM016
Module Overview
Following a preparatory week, you will be spending clinical placement time at our Trust partner hospitals rotating through the clinical disciplines of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Paediatrics, Psychiatry, Emergency Care, General Medicine and Surgery. During your clinical placements, students will also spend one day in every three weeks in consolidation/ clinical skills learning back at the University. The module will include a Reading week
Module provider
School of Health Sciences
Module Leader
DOULTON Jia (Health Sci.)
Number of Credits: 45
ECTS Credits: 22.5
Framework: FHEQ Level 7
Module cap (Maximum number of students): N/A
Overall student workload
Clinical Placement Hours: 400
Seminar Hours: 19
Practical/Performance Hours: 29
Guided Learning: 1
Captured Content: 1
Module Availability
Year long
Prerequisites / Co-requisites
A student has to complete the module before being able to sit the SBA 2 paper at the end of semester 2
Module content
Application of the above Learning Outcomes to the clinical disciplines of Paediatrics, Mental Health, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Emergency medicine , General Medicine and Surgery 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
Pharmacology and Therapeutics
The core procedural skills
Assessment pattern
| Assessment type | Unit of assessment | Weighting |
|---|---|---|
| Coursework | Professional Behaviour and Clinical Practice (PBCP) portfolio | Pass/Fail |
| Coursework | Diagnostic Case Study in hospital practice presented as an academic poster | 10 |
| Examination | Single Best Answer 1 - 100 question SBA | 60 |
| Examination | Single Best Answer 2 - 50 question SBA | 30 |
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, Clinical Skills, in both core procedural skills, and consulting with patients and 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 papers 1 and 2, Clinical skills by the Clinical Skills log, the portfolio, and Professional Behaviour by the SBA paper, the portfolio.
Thus, the summative assessment for this module consists of:
- Professional Behaviour and Clinical Practice (PBCP) portfolio
- Diagnostic case study in hospital practice presented as an academic poster
- 100 questions Single Best Answer (SBA 1) paper at the end of Semester 1
- 50 questions Single Best Answer (SBA 2) paper at the end of Semester 2
Formative assessment: Students will receive frequent formative assessment, with rapid feedback and remediation as needed
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 the relevant specialties.
- Give students clinical experience of working in secondary care settings in these disciplines, and to understand patient 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 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 in the NHS setting.
- Develop deeper understanding of people's rights 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
| 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. Effectively and efficiently hand over responsibility to other health and social care professionals | 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. Demonstrate a commitment to lifelong learning | T |
| 004 | Participate in clinical governance activity, using evidence, guidelines and audit to benefit patient care and improve practice | C |
| 005 | Recognise and appraise the need to manage resources in the NHS cost-effectively | T |
| 006 | Initiate and maintain accurate timely and relevant medical records | T |
| 007 | Show an understanding of patients' rights, in accordance with legislation, policies and procedures, particularly for vulnerable groups (children, vulnerable adults eg. with learning difficulties), applying this knowledge to specific patient situations. | T |
| 008 | Keep a log of patients seen, ensuring that core clinical conditions have been covered in the placement disciplines of paediatrics, obstetrics and gynaecology and mental health, emergency medicine, general medicine and surgery | K |
| 009 | Demonstrate the ability to maintain effective clinician-patient relationships, showing effective communication with patients, carers and children and young people. | 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, in particular children, and patients with mental health problems | C |
| 012 | Demonstrate how to take a patient-centred history and perform a sensitive, focussed clinical examination | 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 | Work safely in situations of diagnostic uncertainty when information/ data is incomplete. Recognise risks to self, the team, patients and others and able to take appropriate action to eliminate/ minimise danger | CT |
| 016 | Revise and practise clinical skills learnt in Year 1, this time on real patients under supervision, that are relevant to these clinical placements | P |
| 017 | 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. Write accurate and legible prescriptions in all clinical settings for review and signature by a supervising clinician. | K |
| 018 | Maintain confidentiality, but know when confidentiality needs to be broken to keep patients or others safe | P |
| 019 | 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, Understand and be able to critique the applications of principles promoting health and preventing disease. | KP |
| 020 | 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 |
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.
The learning and teaching methods include:
Following the virtual cases in Year 1, this design with ensure that in Year 2 the 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.
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: PASM016
Other information
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:
Digital capabilities: the module will incorporate further application of technology enhanced learning opportunities, supplementing those established in year 1 of the programme. Students will experience the application of digital innovation in the health environment, including remote consultation. They will learn how digitalised patient record systems are used in hospitals.
Employability: during this module students experiencing a wide range of hospital and community placements will become proficient in carrying out an effective consultation and demonstrate the professional behaviour expected of a physician associate student. The clinical placements will also give them the opportunity to understand how multi-professional teams work in the NHS Sustainability: students will develop their understanding of safe clinical practice in their clinical placement learning and the Diagnostic case study in hospital practice.
Resourcefulness and Resilience: Students will be supported in further development in reflective practice, time-management and giving and receiving feedback.
Global and Cultural Capabilities: Students will be supported in reflection on their learning from placement experiences. This will include developing a person-centred and patient-centred approach.
Programmes this module appears in
| Programme | Semester | Classification | Qualifying conditions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Physician Associate Studies PGDip(YEAR LONG) | Year-long | 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 2025/6 academic year.