MEDN20010

Learning Outcomes:

EBM
This module provides students with an understanding of the EBM approach and an ability to apply this in their future practice. Students will learn what questions to ask of the literature and will learn and develop the basic skills required to undertake an evaluation of evidence and to report on this. At the end of this module students will have addressed the following important questions and will be able to apply this knowledge to researching clinical cases:
1 Why do we need evidence?
2 How do we find evidence?
3 How do we understand risk?
4 Is screening a good idea?

Clinical Decision Making & Prescribing:
Students will learn the fundamentals of clinical diagnosis of some common medical presentations such as shortness of breath and chest pain and will be introduced to how basic investigations are used in clinical diagnosis. Additionally they will learn the basic principles of clinical pharmacology and safe prescribing. They will learn how to use the online British National Formulary to support safe and effective prescribing.
In addition, throughout this module students will be challenged to question the basis for healthcare interventions and therapies, to evaluate the evidence for certain prevention or treatment strategies and to consider how clinical research evidence can be generated, evaluated and incorporated into patient cantered decision making.

Indicative Module Content:

This module includes content delivered by experts in each of the areas addressed in the learning outcomes. There are three related strands to this module which focuses on introducing and developing skills for your clinical practice. This module is NOT focussed on the retention of facts and knowledge but on the UNDERSTANDING and APPLICATION of new facts, concepts and principles which guide clinical reasoning, prescribing and evidence based practice. Students will learn how to search for answers to clinical questions and evaluate the evidence they find online.

Student Effort Hours:

Approaches to Teaching and Learning:

A series of lectures introduces the main concepts which will be taught in this module. A large proportion of the learning in this module will occur in a self directed fashion- students are expected to practice their developing skills in clinical reasoning and information retrieval and appraisal outside of lectures. There is a formative ( for learning, not for marks) in course assessment in the form of a case based assignment and the preparation of this accounts for a significant portion of student learning in their own time. Students are additionally advised to review, revise and improve their assignment in their own time following the feedback session with the module coordinator, so that they can make the most of this feedback opportunity.

During the modules, there is repeated emphasis on the importance of learning new SKILLS (now to appraise medical information and its sources, particularly that available online) rather than learning off facts which may change during the course of their lifetime of practice. Students should repeatedly challenge themselves use these new skills during the module.

Requirements, Exclusions and Recommendations

Not applicable to this module.

Module Requisites and Incompatibles

Not applicable to this module.
 

Assessment Strategy

 

Please see Student Jargon Buster for more information about remediation types and timing. 

Feedback Strategy/Strategies

• Group/class feedback, post-assessment
• Peer review activities

How will my Feedback be Delivered?

There is a single terminal assessment of this module, however students complete a formative assessment (of exactly the same format as the terminal assessment) midway through the module. This assessment is peer marked in class against model answers, in a session led by the module coordinator. Each question is discussed in detail. The model answers are discussed with an explanation of why they score highly. Common misunderstandings of technical terms and concepts are addressed, as are inadequate/ incorrect approaches to interpretation of evidence. This enables students to review their own performance against the model performance and to engage with the module coordinator on how to improve their performance in advance of the end of module assessment. All assessments are open-book in order to assess students' ability to source and interpret data.

Clinical Evidence Made Easy: The basics of evidence-based medicine (2014)
M. Harris, Jacquelyn Taylor, Daniel Jackson
Scion Publishing Ltd

How to Read a Paper: The Basics of Evidence-based Medicine and Healthcare (2019)
Trisha Greenhalgh
Wiley Blackwell