NWOsw Posted September 22, 2011 Report Share Posted September 22, 2011 I was wondering how quickly other medical schools get the opportunity to jump into clinical work/classes. For example at NOSM we are in week 4 and have already had 2 clinical patient contacts. Is this generally what most schools do? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebouque Posted September 22, 2011 Report Share Posted September 22, 2011 In Canada, patient contact is generally really quick and almost always starts in the first semester. Therefore the answer to your question is yes, absolutely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hking03 Posted September 22, 2011 Report Share Posted September 22, 2011 ubc has a specific component to their first year course that is family practice. in first semester you get 4 visits at a preceptors office, then in second semester you go 12 times (i think)... anyways we've got people heading off next week for their first family practice visits. it seems pretty standard in canada to have early contact with patients in a clinical/family practice setting Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mithril Posted September 22, 2011 Report Share Posted September 22, 2011 ubc has a specific component to their first year course that is family practice. in first semester you get 4 visits at a preceptors office, then in second semester you go 12 times (i think)... anyways we've got people heading off next week for their first family practice visits. it seems pretty standard in canada to have early contact with patients in a clinical/family practice setting We also have volunteer and standardized patients for our clinical skills class. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lactic Folly Posted September 23, 2011 Report Share Posted September 23, 2011 OP, I wouldn't sweat it. Frankly, you have insufficient medical knowledge or clinical skills that patient contact useful to you this early in your training, and you can't really appreciate pathological findings until you know what normal findings are. Agree. While it was very nice of cardiologists and their patients with murmurs to spend an afternoon with us when we were in first year, my ears weren't attuned enough at that point to effectively filter out all the scratchy sounds of chest hair Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigM Posted September 23, 2011 Report Share Posted September 23, 2011 At UWO most of the patients in the first two years are standardized. The benefit of seeing patients as a first year medical student is outweighed by the novelty/coolness factor. OP, I wouldn't sweat it. Frankly, you have insufficient medical knowledge or clinical skills that patient contact useful to you this early in your training, and you can't really appreciate pathological findings until you know what normal findings are. That said, it's exceedingly easy to line up an observership with a doctor if you want to see some patients. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nixon Posted September 23, 2011 Report Share Posted September 23, 2011 At UL we have clinical skills classes every semester from 1st yr to 3rd yr pre-clearkship. These clinical classes are related to the systems of the body we learn about in our general courses (eg. we learn heart-lungs physical exam and anamnesis in our clinical classes while we're studying cardiology and pneumology). We also get to spend a night at the emergency department and there's a full-week intership at the end of the first year for eveyrone. I remember having to perform abdominal exam on a real patient with a real cirrhosis and its classic stigmata during first year OSCE. Talk about student-patient contact In the end i guess clinical exposure is pretty much the same for every med student in Canada but it comes in at different times and in different settings for each school. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lactic Folly Posted September 23, 2011 Report Share Posted September 23, 2011 It's just irritating when schools advertise early patient contact within the first month of starting school. There is very, very little educational value but seems to be a selling point. Yeah, for some reason anatomy bellringer exams just don't have that same popular appeal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nixon Posted September 23, 2011 Report Share Posted September 23, 2011 There is very, very little educational value but seems to be a selling point. The real value is to get you to feel like you're playing doctor, and maybe to call your mom and tell her that you saw a real patient. Partially true IMO. Early clinical contact can be of educational value for students who didn't have the opportunity to spend time at the hospital or who are not so familiar with health-care system. Also we get to discover the fields of practice of physicians and other health care workers which i think is a plus value Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bloh Posted September 25, 2011 Report Share Posted September 25, 2011 Well communication is an integral part of being a physician and you can start working on that right away with minimal medical knowledge. I figured that's what most schools did at the beginning, unless I'm mistaken? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebouque Posted September 25, 2011 Report Share Posted September 25, 2011 I remember having to perform abdominal exam on a real patient with a real cirrhosis and its classic stigmata during first year OSCE. Talk about student-patient contact Really? A patient with an actual cirrhosis in an OSCE? Times have changed! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nixon Posted September 26, 2011 Report Share Posted September 26, 2011 I was as surprised as you but he clearly had major ascites and adbominal signs of portal HT. I'd bet a hundred bucks he was cirrhotic. I guess they thought it would be of clinical and educational interest to ask him to be part of the OSCE (which was!! ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lactic Folly Posted September 27, 2011 Report Share Posted September 27, 2011 Well communication is an integral part of being a physician and you can start working on that right away with minimal medical knowledge. You can also start by doing role plays with other students.. for those starting out, this is likely more flexible than recruiting actual patients, until such point as you are fluent enough to see them on your own. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebouque Posted September 27, 2011 Report Share Posted September 27, 2011 You can also start by doing role plays with other students.. for those starting out, this is likely more flexible than recruiting actual patients, until such point as you are fluent enough to see them on your own. That's actually how it works at Ulaval Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
apache Posted September 27, 2011 Report Share Posted September 27, 2011 i thought our first clinical skills sessions were good for learning to take social histories and the more psychosocial aspects of a patients life, but yeah, for the first 3-4 months it's not like you really have any foundation to make it clinically useful, but i think interview skills in and of themselves are useful Yeah they are called observorships and they serve a different purpose than what's being discussed here. We were talking more about using patients as a teaching point for medical students early in their career. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
apache Posted September 27, 2011 Report Share Posted September 27, 2011 we did this, and we had a third person in the group evaluate body language etc. it was a good little session You can also start by doing role plays with other students.. for those starting out, this is likely more flexible than recruiting actual patients, until such point as you are fluent enough to see them on your own. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NLengr Posted September 27, 2011 Report Share Posted September 27, 2011 Memorial uses standardized patients during the first few months. Makes it a bit more serious than role playing with your peers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebouque Posted September 27, 2011 Report Share Posted September 27, 2011 Memorial uses standardized patients during the first few months. Makes it a bit more serious than role playing with your peers. We also have standardized patients. Every semester (4 times) in our preclerkship, we have a day that we spend with standardized patients + 4 exams on standardized patients (2 small OSCEs 2 big OSCEs), + ''playing with our peers'' every week and some real patient experience (about once a semester, a whole week at the end of 1st year and 3 weeks at the end of 2nd year). I'm biased but I think that this system is great Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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