You will largely (80%) based around longer clinical placements in hospitals and general practices across Kent and Medway with 20% campus learning at the start of each year and Integrated Practice modules at the end. If you decide to take an intercalated year it will be between years 3 and 4.
Clinical placements will include general practice, community health and social care, public health, and with Third Sector organisations. Specialist disciplines will be introduced through hospital, general practice and community clinical placement settings. You will learn how patients present and are cared for by General Practitioners GPs) with extended roles, as well as by hospitalists working outside the hospital environment.
While on your placements, you will monitor and log your learning on an ePortfolio. You will learn more about the professional values and behaviours of doctors and will receive feedback from the team members you encounter, as well as through reflective case writing and patient feedback.
You will follow a series of patients on their journeys, seeing them when they are admitted to hospital or first visit a GP, following their progress through their care and back home again. You will visit your patient at home along with their GP and any relevant community services.
In this stage you can choose topics to study in greater depth through the Student Selected Components (SSCs) and Individual Research Project (IRP), usually based in a clinical or healthcare environment or either university. Options include the whole spectrum of biomedical, psychological and social healthcare as well as the humanities, physical and social sciences.
During year 3, you will use your learning from years 1 and 2, working with real patients in clinical settings, and build your medical knowledge with new modules studied on campus. The emphasis for year 3 is on developing clinical expertise, by observation, practice under supervision, and reflection.
You will study modules totalling 120 credits.
- Clinical Foundations Course
- Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics
- Scientific Basis of Medicine
- General Medicine
- Elderly Medicine and Psychiatry
- Surgery
- Student Selected Component 1 and 2
- Integrated Practice 1
The first three modules are campus based and will prepare you to spend the rest of the year on clinical placement. They focus on the key clinical knowledge and skills you will need to maximise your learning while you are on placement.
The clinical placements in General Medicine, Surgery, Elderly Medicine and Psychiatry will be spread across the whole of Kent and Medway. If required your accommodation will be provided, based at the main site, with visits to other sites arranged as required. This means you can settle into your learning, get to know the staff and patients well, and do not have to spend time re-adjusting every time you move to a different placement. You will complete a Student Selected Component in each of semesters one and two, and the year will conclude with a period of consolidation while on placement, called Integrated Practice.
Year 4 will consist of two Clinical Placement modules and an Independent Research Project, studied in parallel, followed by the second Integrated Practice module.
You will study modules totalling 180 credits
- Specialist Rotations module, consists of eight x 5-week placements in:
- Obstetrics and Gynaecology
- Paediatrics
- Neurosciences and Rehabilitation
- Musculoskeletal Medicine and Surgery
- Ophthalmology and Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) Medicine
- Infectious Diseases, HIV / Genito-Urinary Medicine (GUM), and Health Protection
- Dermatology
- Oncology, Haematology and Palliative Care
- General Practice and Public Health placement for one day per week for the year
- Independent Research Project, taking one day per week for the year
- Integrated Practice 2
To enable you to experience working in a different NHS environment for your secondary care placements you will be allocated to a different hospital to year 3. In addition, you will also be assigned to a second general practice close to this hospital, so that you can learn how a different practice operates. Your placements for the entire year will be within the same geographical location wherever possible and accommodation will be provided if you are placed away from Canterbury.