MEDS 5080 - Medical Skills I

3 credit hours

Medical Skills 508A is held weekly throughout the fall semester of the first year. The Medical Skills courses will teach the arts of the physical examination, history-taking, chart documentation, and oral presentation of a patient. The Medical Skills courses are enriched by the mentoring of bedside manner skills and medical student personal growth through Communications sessions and standardized patient encounters. Throughout the year, students will participate in large group discussions of topics such as professionalism, evidence-based medicine, the social determinants of health, and health promotion. Students will also engage in small group practice of history-taking and physical examination skills with clinician facilitators, practice of basic medical procedures, simulation activities with patient simulator models, and multiple one-on-one encounters with standardized patients throughout the year. Student skills will be assessed intermittently through the use of graded note-writing, written examinations, and OSCEs (objective structured clinical examinations.)