Patient contact and clinical skills development start in Unit 1 and increase throughout the programme. The scientific background for understanding patients' problems, while more intensively studied in earlier units, continues to be applied as it is relevant to the care of patients in clinical situations. The major learning objectives comprise selected topics spanning the molecular to the global environment. Basic issues of critical thinking, clinical skills and communication skllls are introduced which become further developed in the subsequent units. In this component of the programme students participate in the direct care of patients as they learn about the management of health and illness.
All prior objectives apply, but the health-care problems are now real patients or populations.
The Clerkship programme consists of rotations in Medicine, Surgery, Family Medicine, Psychiatry, Pediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynecology, and in elective time of which one-half must be spent in clinical medicine. The compulsory components of the clerkship are carried out in teaching practices and in all the teaching hospitals in the Hamilton region. The elective experience can be spent in various activities utilizing local, regional or distant resources. The main theme for this unit is the practicing physician . With a knowledge of the biological bases of medicine acquired in previous units and the clinical experience of the Clerkship, the students are now ready to tackle issues derived from societal expectations of practicing physicians.