Health Practice 1-5

These subjects include three parallel streams each semester: Human Mind and Behaviour, Health and Society and Introduction to Clinical Medicine (ICM).

The Department of General Practice has been heavily involved in the development of Health Practice 1 to 5, ensuring that each stream is clinically relevant and stimulating. The department has also led a major review of Health Practice 1-5 with a revised and more integrated format being introduced in 2005.

Introduction to Clinical Medicine

Our expertise and experience gained over ten years of teaching communication skills in the third year of the former curriculum have been crucial in the development of the curriculum for ICM. Students in ICM develop skills in effective communication, conducting a medical interview and physical examination, while taking a patient-centred approach.

Learning takes place in small group tutorials each week, alternating between on-campus where new skills are introduced and in clinical placements, where the skills are reinforced through involvement with patients. The campus tutorials utilise videos of consultations and examinations, peer interviews in a role-play setting, and interviews with simulated patients. The placement tutorials are hosted at different sites each semester with ICM 5 placements occurring in general practice.

Each semester ICM culminates in an Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) in which the communication, consulting and physical examination skills of students are assessed.