Teaching and Learning Methods
Learning Methods: the emphasis of the clinical course is a problem-solving approach, whereby clinical problems are presented and students use their knowledge base (supplemented by literature search) to establish a (differential) diagnosis and plan effective management.
Environment: throughout the clinical elements of the course, the emphasis is on learning in a clinical setting: at the bedside, in outpatient clinics and in GP surgeries supported by seminars, tutorials and discussion groups.
Several placements require students to research and present case-based reports highlighting an aspect of their experience.
Learning in Core Medical Science is based in the central Cambridge medical science departments; students learn alongside Standard Course Medical Sciences students attending lectures, practical classes and College supervisions (see Programme Specifications for the Medical and Veterinary Sciences for further detail).
General Practice and Community-base: General Practices in and around Bury St Edmunds provide students with sufficient numbers and variety of patients to follow from hospital into General Practice and to allow students to gain experience of conditions generally seen in the community.
Four students in each year group are attached to a single practice for the duration of the course, with designated General Practitioner time facilitating experiential learning, and giving opportunity to observe illness and disease over a long period. General Practitioners act as individual tutors and practices are linked to facilitate group learning.
Group size: learning in small groups is important with no more than seven in a supervision group.
Clinical teaching is organized in bedside groups for clinical demonstrations, in pairs in General Practice and singly and in pairs for opportunistic clinical contact on the hospital wards and the out-patient clinics.
There is a maximum group size of 20 for seminars in Level 1 and in Level 3; the maximum group size in Level 2 is 35.
Supervisions and Tutorials: for all Cambridge undergraduate courses, weekly supervisions during term are organised for small groups of students in the College to develop and support departmental teaching.
During Level 1, College groups meet a clinician tutor once a week in term to discuss an Index Case – a clinical case which puts the medical science into context. There are also up to three supervisions a week with a subject specialist to support the Second MB lecture programme. During clinical placements, students are allocated to a group for weekly bedside teaching with a local Clinical Supervisor (a Specialist Registrar) who helps to develop clinical method. Topic-based tutorials and discussions of ethical problems may also be included.
For Level 2 and the first part of Level 3, when they are based in Cambridge, CGC students have clinical supervisions similar to those of the Standard Clinical Course.
During Level 3, when they are based at the West Suffolk Hospital, students again have a local clinical supervisor.
CGC Tutors: practising clinicians with a key role and responsibility in the development, management and delivery of the CGC who provide academic support to the students including the delivery of Index Case supervisions.
Lectures: The Level 1 Medical Science curriculum is based on the lecture programme organised by the Faculty of Biology supported by practical classes and demonstrations.
In the clinical components of the CGC, lectures are used to describe clinical conditions and the patho-physiology that underlies them; clinical experience then demonstrates and reinforces the content of the lecture.
Lecturers provide support materials which are made available to students electronically, and often as handouts.
Review & Integration (R & I) Weeks: CGC students join standard course students for eight of a series of ten ‘Review and Integration’ (R & I) weeks spread throughout the course.
R & I weeks include a programme of lectures covering subject matter that, for educational or practical reasons, is best delivered in large groups such as the core content of Pathology and other themes. Two R & I weeks in Level 1 are designed especially for the CGC students.
Practical Clinical Skills: opportunities for learning practical clinical skills are provided in all placements and reinforced by skills practitioners.
There are Clinical Skills Units (CSU) at Addenbrooke’s, the West Suffolk Hospital and in regional hospitals where experienced teachers have responsibility for delivering a vertically-integrated programme of practical clinical skills.
Library and IT Facilities: In Cambridge, students have access to the University Library, medical science departmental libraries, the Clinical School’s Medical Library and the libraries in each of the CGC colleges.
At the West Suffolk Hospital, there is a multi-professional education centre including library facilities and 26 networked computer workstations, with wireless connection within the Centre and also in the residential accommodation. An intranet gives access to web-based course material, the ER Web and internet.
All Clinical Students register with the Medical Library in Cambridge, which is a branch of the main University Library. It is located on the top two floors of the Clinical School building, and has over 170 study places. The book section contains over 34 000 textbooks, the majority of which may be borrowed. There are about 64 000 periodical volumes, and about 1000 current periodical titles. Self-service photocopying facilities are available.
The Medical Library's Wolfson Technology Resource Centre is a purpose-built, multi-media computer room equipped with networked PC and Macintosh workstations and printers. These offer a variety of word-processing and other applications, together with World Wide Web and telnet access. There is an extensive range of computerised information services, including end-user access to the Medline, Embase, and Cochrane Library databases. Further computer terminals are located in seminar rooms in the Clinical School and in the Sherwood Room (the student common room) and a number of loan laptops are available through the library.
The Clinical School IT Support Service (CSITSS) manages the Educational Resource Web (ERWeb) which hosts all the academic and administrative material for the curriculum. The online student and programme evaluation system and certain online assessments are part of the ERWeb.