Activities in this unit aim to build on clinical education elements of the programme by developing the student Physician Associate as a scientist and scholar. This unit runs throughout the academic year and equips students with the knowledge and skills required to participate in scholarly activities, quality/service improvement work and to understand the evidence base for a range of activities in the clinical environment.
The first (university based) part of the unit is delivered in Semester Two and consists of lectures and seminars that deliver training in the fundamentals of evidence based medicine, including:
- Familiarity with the five key steps of evidence-based practice.
- Literature searching and the use of a ‘PICO’ strategy to formulate questions.
- Understanding different research designs and relating them to strength of clinical evidence.
- Demonstrating effective search for clinically-relevant evidence.
- Being able to critically appraise evidence presented in the extant literature.
- Outlining how evidence is applied to clinical practice.
- Applying basic statistical techniques relevant to clinical research.
- Identification, conceptualisation and exposition of unsolved problems.
- Formulation of research questions and development of research proposals.
Students are also expected to participate in scholarly activities whilst on placement including contributing to audit and service improvement/evaluation work that is on-going within the medical team. They will log and reflect upon scholarly activities (for example attendance at journal clubs, research presentations and formal talks) in an online Research and Scholarship portfolio that acts to counterbalance and supplement their Personal and Professional Development Portfolio. Students will also develop knowledge of clinical governance and medical ethics and how these fit into modern regularity frameworks.
Students will learn how to develop research questions and will record their achievements in a reflective portfolio. By the end of placement C (MEDN60010) they will prepare a literature review and research proposal that will form the basis of work undertaken in MEDN60040 (concurrently with MEDN60020) during the second year of study.
Feedback provided electronically:
- The research proposal and report/review will receive a mark and formal comments
- Reflective portfolio entries will receive a mark with comments and/or qualitative feedback as appropriate.
