This is a clinical course-clerkship- for the fifth year medical students, nine credit hours, nine weeks for each group for a total of 5 groups around the year.
The main goal of the Family and emergency Medicine clerkship is to help The students:
1-Get the required knowledge and skills needed for the graduating physician to work as a general practitioner, and be able to deal properly with emergency cases.
2- Becoming effective in interviewing patients.
3-Conducting a skilled and sensitive physical assessment.
4- Enhancing clinical reasoning skills.
5-Finding and using evidence based medicine.
Teaching is a mixture of both didactic(lectures and seminars) and bedside teaching at JUST health center, KAUH emergency department, MOH Primary care centers, and others.
For the family medicine part, The clerkship will provide an outstanding learning experience for the 5th year medical students who will spend training period at a university based health center and other affiliated primary health care centers in Irbid area. Students during this rotation are exposed to different medical problems commonly seen at primary healthcare setting.
They will be taught how to take the proper, timely managed medical history, perform focused examination, and will learn the communication skills and participate in management plan as well.
Didactic teaching is composed of lectures and seminars, which are selected based on the common diseases with an emphasis on disease prevention and health promotion.
The Emergency Department at King Abdullah University hospital (ED-KAUH) hosts the Emergency Medicine part, During this training period, 5th year medical students will get a comprehensive experience in Emergency Medicine.
The Clerkship starts on with a mandatory orientation. The orientation period is a 2-day long phase that includes a series of lectures, interactive discussions and hands-on simulation sessions. The goal of this phase is to allow students to acquire the essential knowledge and skills in preparation for the clinical experience of the clerkship. Topics covered in the orientation period include medical imaging, airway management, trauma, toxicology, chest pain, and trauma.
After completing their 2-day orientation period, students are expected to do approximately 7-8 clinical, daytime shifts at ED-KAUH, Princess Basmah Teaching Hospital and Prince Rashid Military Hospital. Student are expected to perform as sub-interns; they will evaluate and manage patients that present to the ED under the supervision of a senior Emergency Medicine (EM) physician. They will be responsible for taking histories, performing physical examinations, ordering laboratory and radiology studies, and implementing treatment plans as guided by the EM physician. During their clerkship, students will be exposed to a wide variety of patient presentation from low acuity cases to complicated and critically ill patients, to having the chance to observe and participate in cardiac arrest and trauma codes.
During the clerkship, students will also be able to observe simple procedures such as laceration repairs, incision and drainage of abscesses, arterial blood gas withdrawal, and splinting of fractures. During their clinical shifts period, most of the teaching will be bedside by senior EM residents and attending physicians. In order to maximize their learning experience, students are asked to participate in the weekly resident education day which takes place at the department.
Students performance during the clerkship is evaluated through a multitude of tools. In addition to the final written and OSCE exam at the conclusion of the clerkship, performance is evaluated through a special student evaluation form, filled by the attending physician, on a shift by shift basis. This form evaluates students regarding the following skills and competencies: attendance, history taking and physical examination, clinical reasoning, presentation, follow-up, professionalism, and documentation. In addition, as part of their evaluation, students present an interesting case they have seen in the ED. They are expected to discuss the clinical presentation, workup, diagnosis and management of the case. The case presentation sessions, in addition to their role in student evaluation, are meant to improve the student's teaching skills as well as learn to a greater depth about a subject.