Formal Taught Sessions: Themed Case Discussions and Secondary Component Teaching

Themed Cased Discussion (TCD) will continue from Year 3 with some notable differences:

• You will be required to review background and relevant Years 1-3 material, through pre-placement study.
• Weekly TCD sessions will be delivered in smaller groups within placement.

We will continue to use the ‘Flipped Classroom’ model you are familiar with from Year 3. Blended learning will continue to provide the scaffold to support learning experiences. You will complete one or more online cases prior to each tutor-facilitated TCD session at the end of the week. In this weekly TCD session you will be required to demonstrate knowledge acquisition, clinical reasoning and an ability to transfer knowledge during the session. As per Year 3 this will be accomplished by discussion of unseen cases. These cases will be closely aligned to the Intended Learning Outcomes of the placement and will mimic the complexity of clinical care. The tutors for these sessions will be specialists in the areas the cases cover.

These TCD sessions are for your benefit. Please take part, help your fellow students and engage with the tutors. The more you engage, the more interesting and interactive each session will be. It is a wonderful opportunity for you to learn how to think like a clinician and develop your clinical reasoning skills. Remember, you won’t just be asked for answers but you will be expected to explain how you have reached your conclusions. This is a key step in your development on the path to becoming a doctor.

The TCD sessions have all been designed by experts in their fields and will last between 1.5 and 2.5 hours, depending on the requirements of that week’s material.

Secondary Component Teaching

As longitudinal elements of the programme, Secondary Components learning will be integrated into Year 4 Clinical Placement Blocks. Sessions are designed to align with the needs of placement specific Intended Learning Outcomes and therefore will not necessarily occur in every placement. The sessions will be incorporated into the timetables for relevant blocks. The topics have been designed to guide your approach to consultations in complex situations, applying and extending skills learnt in previous years e.g. mental health consultation, ethics and law in end of life care, medicines safety and prescribing in dermatological conditions.

When you receive your Clinical Placement Block Timetable it will include information on these sessions.

The majority of this teaching will be face to face.