2012-08-15

No More Borders ! Learning with Clinical Presentation

Many medical schools are teaching with departmental based style, meaning that everything the medical students should learn is governed by each department, this rule is also applied in our Faculty. However, many has adopted the PBL principles which means that the topics chosen to the medical students is guided by multi-disciplinary curriculum, because consultants from many departments can join together to teach the same topic.

The same principle applied to Clinical Presentation curriculum, compared to the PBL case discussion, learning with the clinical presentation or can be called "symptomatology" can lead to fewer case numbers for the same learning objectives, and the teachers are from different specialties as well.

So, the students have to be ready and get more involved in this teaching module, because it is definitely from the structure feeding style from each separate department, it will enhance the thinking, reasoning, and communicating skills to the learners that require for the 21st century life.

For example, a man with headache does not mean that he should belong to neurology and neurosurgery units only, he may just need an ophthalmoscope for his eye examination, if he has just been given anasthetic to his subarachnoid space, he then needs a shout to his anaesthetic consultant for a post-dural puncture headache to be ruled out. One more example; Dyspnoea does not mean that he needs a chest physician to treat, he may require a cardiologist, an ENT man, or even a CVT surgeon!

Updated on 5 Sept 55:
We discussed this topic with a group of medical students working at the GI Endoscope centre, there was a lady presented to us with a problem of dyspnoea, she had been diagnosed of congestive heart failure (or more specific Left sided heart failure), and also had a problem of her chest. She told us that she had a problem of collapsed lung but cannot recall which side it was. So, in this patient, the symptom of dyspnoea is from both the cardiovascular and respiratory in origin.

The problem of anaemia is also a problem of multi-disciplinary medicine, your patient can have a problem from the haematologic system, the bone marrow or anything that interferes the red cell production, your patient can have a problem of blood loss from the GI tract either upper or lower site, he/she can present with a haematuria which is urinary system, or anemia can be derived from the renal cause because your patient develops kidney dysfunction.

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