Course Objectives

Introduction

Outlined below are our learning objectives for the course. Each objective has three components:

  • Content: what we expect you to learn
  • Curriculum: the tools we hope you use to learn it
  • Evaluation: the tools we use to find out if you've learned it

Some of the objectives are relatively specific, others less so; we acknowledge this can be frustrating, but it's impossible to get the full depth and breadth of 12 weeks of internal medicine into a brief document. We hope this will be a starting point for you, but we encourage you to develop your own learning goals that extend beyond the content of this page.

Core Topics

Content

The curriculum contains 12 core clinical topics, listed below. For each topic we expect you to see at least one patient with the topic, and hope you will develop the knowledge and judgment necessary to manage a patient presenting with this problem. Management is an advanced skill, and we acknowledge that not all will achieve this goal; see the pages on P/RIME and grading for details on how we incorporate your interpretation and management skills into your clinical grade. The 12 topics are:

  1. Chest pain
  2. Dyspnea
  3. GI bleed
  4. Abdominal pain
  5. Altered mental status
  6. Preventive care
  7. Fever
  8. Hypertension
  9. Diabetes
  10. Electrolyte disorder
  11. Kidney failure
  12. Joint or back pain

Curriculum

We expect that over the clerkship you will see at least one patient with each of these common problems, and will track whether or not you have done so as the clerkship progresses. However, these are also covered in the online cases as another way to meet this requirement in the unusual circumstance you don't see them in real patients.

Evaluation

Core Clinical Skills

Content

There are specific skills we hope you learn as part of the clerkship. These include:

  1. Gaining experience and confidence in history taking and physical examination.
  2. Refining and condensing write-ups and oral presentations to be precise but efficient in communication about patients.
  3. Learning to use laboratory tests, radiologic examinations and special procedures, (i.e., blood drawing, intravenous lines, arterial blood gases) to work up and treat patients' problems.
  4. Learning to construct a differential diagnosis, and be able to support your diagnosis based on clinical findings.
  5. In addition to general clinical skills, we have developed specific benchmarks for three skill sets which will be used for the mini-CEX and the senior OSCE. These skills are:

Curriculum

  • Online exam benchmarks [see above]
  • Lectures
  • Direct patient care
  • Bedside teaching

Evaluation

Professionalism

Content

We have high expectations of professionalism and will be evaluating you by the same standard we would apply for anyone engaged in direct patient care. In addition to basic expectations (for example, attendance) we ask that you engage in a reflection on some of the professional and ethical conflicts that arise on the inpatient service. These will be discussed at a dedicated session with a faculty facilitator during the clerkship.

Curriculum

  • Facilitated discussion with faculty
  • Bedside/ward teaching

Evaluation

Conclusion

The above is an outline of basic goals and objectives for the Medicine clerkship. This is by no means all you will learn during your 12 weeks with us, but if you feel like any of these objectives are going unmet, we strongly encourage you to discuss it with your site coordinator during one of your feedback sessions. Enjoy the clerkship!