Clinical Training in Undergraduate Medical Education

This book is intended to serve the needs of clinical educators in medical schools, especially in clinical clerkships. The bulk of the literature written about undergraduate medical education is on the pre-clerkship phase. Clinical clerkship phase is as important as the previous phase and it is intended to be mostly a hands-on experience and training for the students. Most of this training is by exposure to the clinical activities where the students are required to take part in, contribute to and learn during the continuing clinical activities. It is an exciting but a difficult time for the students. They have to learn the basics and sometimes the details of clinical skills, procedures and in many cases they are expected to perform as a young doctor. They are expected to make good differential diagnosis in the busy clinical environment. Considering all these, clinical education should be organized in a systematic way to allow the students grasp the necessary clinical knowledge, skills and attitudes as they experience the complexities and uncertainties of clinical environment. The book provides information about basic concepts of clerkship organization and assessment with various models. Equally important is the clinical skills training which starts in the early phases of medical schools. Three chapters have been devoted to this topic. The organization of clerkships employing various approaches and methods are discussed extensively. Community-based education, use of university and affiliated hospitals, learner-centred clinical education, use of flipped classrooms and integrating basic sciences in clinical clerkships are discussed in separate chapters. As assessment drives learning, the basic principles and the organization of assessment and evaluation including continuous assessment have been covered in three chapters. Believing that more emphasis should be given to interprofessional education, evidence-based medicine, mentoring and providing feedback in the context of organizing clerkships they have been discussed extensively in separate chapters. We hope it will be of help to clinician teachers as well as medical educators involved in clinical training.