Clinical Skills


Winston Mitchell, MBBS, Chair

Communication Skills and Physical Diagnosis
CLSK 653

This course instructs students in communication skills that they will need as medical students and physicians in order to relate to senior physicians, colleagues, patients and their families, and other health care professionals. The course prepares students for their role in addressing the common problems found in delivering health care, for example, providing health care instruction and delivering “bad news.” Students will develop both oral and written communication skills and learn the components of the standard history and the art of presenting cases. The physical diagnosis portion builds on the clinical skills learnt in the first year of Basic Sciences. The course uses both lectures and laboratory sessions to teach physical examination skills. The laboratory groups consist of small groups of students. The techniques of physical exam are taught by videotape demonstration, live demonstration and supervised practice on fellow students.

Introduction to Clinical Medicine
CLSK 654/CLSK 655

This course teaches students in small groups at the hospital or an outpatient setting as well as on campus using volunteer patients. The overall objective of the Introduction to Clinical Medicine course is to ensure that students understand the process of taking a history, doing a physical exam on a patient and organizing their findings into a written or oral presentation. Students should develop sufficient interpersonal and clinical skills in this course in order to integrate rapidly into the clinical hospital setting when they start their clinical terms. This course requires students to develop clinical thought processes leading to the art and science of problem solving in clinical medicine.

 

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