GUMS News

There will be three meetings of the Y1/Y2 committee in 2010.

Theme reports

DKHI: Years one and two are underway and so far so good.  Lecture capture is on its way making lectures available for viewing on learning at Griffith after the session has taken place.  Some technicalities and procedures need to be organised first but hopefully it will be available soon

DHC: Year one community placements have been changed from 4 placements to 3 placements due to feedback from last year.  There will also be a more structured format to be applied to the community placement reports this year.

D&P: Year one have begun their communication skills block and year two have learnt gastrointestinal examinations, endocrine and reproductive system examinations and had venepuncture and basic life support workshops.  There have been some changes to assessment resulting from feedback from previous years changing D&P assessment to be predominately OSCE focussed assessment.

DLEPP: Year 2 will have a coroner’s symposium next week, where attendance is compulsory under the participation policy.   DLEPP Learning Objectives have also been worked on for this year to make them more concise.

Assessment committee

Year 2 exam preparation is underway.  (Year 2 exam week is week beginning 05/04/2010).  Band performance scores from 2009 are in the process of being fine tuned and should be available soon.

Student Report

The topics of lecture notes not being available on learning at Griffith was raised and a policy has been put in place that lecture slides from previous years sessions will be made available unless a lecturer does not want their old slides to be made available.  Therefore lecture notes should be available prior to sessions. . The course booklets for all themes are available on learning at Griffith.  The school is looking to put all of this information under one tab on learning at Griffith to make the database of course information more user friendly.

It was discussed that some DLEPP learning objectives were not coming out in year 2 cases, particularly the transplantation learning objectives.  The case has been brought to attention and will be possibly revised.

It was suggested, from a  third year perspective, that in years one and two  there be more focus on practical skills in the hospital as it is an area of concern when year three is reached.  The school has responded that this has been incorporated, where possible into D&P workshops and classes and that a lot of it is ‘on the job’ training that can really be learnt in the clinical setting when students get there in third year.

If you have any concerns or would like me to raise any issues please be in touch at academic@gums.org.au.

Focus for 2010

Changes for 2010 include no year one or year 2 GP placements.  GP Placements will be moved from first year to second year and as the current second years had GP placements last year there will be no GP placements this year.  For years one and two there will be case wraps for each PBL case.  Year 2 will have a ‘discussions of disability’ day later in the year, year one will have a ‘self care day’ in July.  Year one will have a ‘survival tutorial’ later this week.

A change for this year, in years one and two, has been the major revision of all learning objectives to make them more focussed.  Lots of work has been done revising all of the PBL cases to better integrate the themes into them. 

The major change for year two has been the combination of the brain and musculoskeletal blocks.  These have been combined to form the new “Brain, Mind and Body” block.  As many of the cases in these blocks have closely related concepts it has been decided to integrate these blocks.  In this new block a major difference from previous years, is that there will be weeks during this block that will be PBL free to cover general concepts.  To make this possible some of the PBL cases in these blocks have been consolidated which will highlight comparisons and contrasts between clinical conditions.  There will be a greater use of clinical vignettes throughout this block.  These changes are hoped to better integrate the themes and learning concepts.  There have also been changes to the integration block cases which have been adapted to be more inline with cases that are commonly faced over a medical career.

Aims for 2011

At this stage the main aims are to continually breakdown and review blocks to make the blocks in the first two years more consolidated.  Work will continue to improve the changes that have been made in 2010.  Focus on further integrating mental health and neurology in the new “Brain, mind and Body Block” will be a target in 2011.

The next Y1/Y2 committee meeting will be held in June.  However I meet regularly with Jeff Schwartz and am happy to raise any concerns that you may have in the meantime.  Please be in touch at academic@gums.org.au.