They must also use effective communication skills to take a history from and give advice to patients, act upon opportunities for preventative medicine and recognise the importance of social and environmental. It is up to students to achieve the objectives in the context of a rotation through 12, eight-week clinical attachments. Such long attachments mean that a conventional rotation through specialities is not possible. These are known as General Clinical Blocks. Usually a partnership consists of two clinical teachers from different specialities.
Students spend part of each week with each partner.
Most partnerships include a 'generalist', which is a consultant with on-take responsibility and a bed base, plus a more specialist clinician. Often, the 'generalist' will teach mostly with in-patients, with the specialist in the outpatient environment. Students and teachers decide at the beginning of each block which learning objectives can reasonably be addressed by students in that block. Over a series of blocks students will come into contact with clinicians from nearly all specialities, so a full range of experience will be achieved. The students are helped to monitor their progress towards the competency-based objectives by the collation of a 'portfolio' of patient studies.