Paediatrics and Child Health is a core clinical rotation in the final year of the medical program.
Course goals are to help students to:
- preparing for work in a paediatric clinical unit;
- recognise the sick child;
- understanding the scope of paediatrics and
- gain sufficient knowledge and experience to progress to postgraduate training in Paediatrics and Child Health.
The eight-week rotation is a clinical immersion underpinned by the paediatric online interactive education (POLIE) curriculum, supplemented by a specialist lecture series and other teaching sessions depending on the specific Clinical School attachment. Assessment includes work based assessment (mini-CEX) and an end of rotation MCQ and OSCE examination.
After successfully completing this course students should be able to:
- Relate the pathogenesis of common/important paediatric illness to its expected presentation, natural history and implications for management.
- Recognise and differentiate the clinical signs of a seriously ill child.
- Develop and apply a clinical approach to common/important acute and chronic paediatric presentations.
- Develop and apply clinical reasoning skills in the assessment and management of a child.
- Develop and apply skills in communicating with children and their parents.
- Apply strategies for health prevention and maintenance within the family, social, cultural and community context for the child.
- Recognise and apply strategies for safe patient care including risk prevention, public health awareness and infection control.
- Access, evaluate and apply clinical research findings in the management of sick children.
- Develop skills in evaluating their performance and directing their own learning.
- Demonstrate the principles of ethical medical practice through their interaction with children and their families, and with colleagues.
- Demonstrate an awareness of the importance of multidisciplinary teams in the management of children.