On behalf of the staff of the Department of FAMCO I would like to welcome you to the Junior Clerkship. We all hope you will find it an interesting and enjoyable experience.
The course lasts for ten weeks and will take place in both MOH and SQU Health Centers. (See Appendix). Each student cohort is divided into small groups for 5 rotations in health centers including Oral Health, and clinical skills labs.
Your Junior Clerkship will provide you with first-hand experience of the flavor and content of medical practice in the primary care setting. It will complement the teaching activities in the Department and provide you with opportunities to practice some of the consultation strategies and skills.
In all there are 28 practice-based teaching sessions each lasting for 4 hours each.
Each day begins with a morning meeting at 0745 in the Famco Health Centre except on the 1st Tuesday morning of every month at 0800 in Radiology Department. From 0900 – 1300 clinical teaching in the various health centers, skills labs and Oral Health. From 1400 – 1600, case presentations and seminars on Saturdays, Sundays and Tuesdays.
Departmental teaching is conducted on a ‘small group’ basis. This encourages an interchange of knowledge and a sharing of experiences and understanding between you, your fellow students and your teachers. A wide variety of teaching techniques is used, for example, case presentations/discussions and practice of evidence based medicine.
In the sessions designated as a student case presentations you will be expected to select and present appropriate examples of the particular seminar topic from observations you make in your teaching practice. Please bear in mind that the outcome of these particular seminars will to a great extent be dependent on the thoroughness with which you prepare your case material.
The combination of departmental and practice teaching should enable you to develop the ability to apply principles and knowledge with which you are familiar to situations which are not familiar to you.
Course Aims and Objectives
The overall aim of the Junior Clerkship is:
“To help all students develop the consultation competences required to define and manage the health problems in primary care in Oman”.
At the end of the Junior Clerkship it is expected that all students would “be able to take a basic clinical history and perform a basic physical examination of the major body systems”. This course will, therefore, build on and extend the competences you acquired in the introductory clinical course and in the other clinical blocks undertaken by you prior to coming to Famco.
The Famco Junior Clerkship has the overall intention “to help all students to become better doctors, irrespective of their current career preference or eventual career choice”.1 Our intention is to concentrate on “the principles of and the concepts underlying, sound clinical method in its broadest sense, and provide guidance on how its many components need to be integrated and then applied in clinical practice for the benefit of patients”.1
By the end of your rotation you will be expected to demonstrate competence in:
Outline of 9 week Rotation
25th August 2001 – 9th November 2001
Group B