Dr. Shanika Boyce Discusses the Clinical Skills Rubric
How important are the Clinical Skills courses in preparing the students for the immersive training that the course title implies? The course itself is very important for helping students to develop the foundational skills, communicating with patients, and thinking holistically. As they’ re getting the patient’ s medical history, they’ re conducting a physical exam based on differentials. It also is helping to develop clinical reasoning skills. Because we want to really foster future physicians who are able to communicate and interact with patients, but they’ re also able to think critically about the information.
They’ re receiving the history from the patient, and as they examine that patient and there’ s findings, we want them to be able to go the next step further. To think about how all of those puzzle pieces fit together so that they can appropriately treat their patients and really contribute to their overall health. That’ s something that CDU is trying to build into future physicians who are going to be working the community, who look like their patients, and are effectively treating them. With Clinical Skills we are really trying to build those foundational skills in the first two years that allow students to receive that training early on.
How does participation in the courses offer long term benefits to students? With the building blocks for these skill sets, students will be able to really see their own progress throughout the year. The goal during the first year is for them to see where they came from when they started the course during the initial Gateway course, Introducing Clinical Skills. And they were very nervous to be thrown in there and having to interact with the standardized patients.
We are now a little bit over halfway, and students are starting to see their progress, which is good for them and their competence levels. This is going to continue to build as they start to interact with real patients with preceptors and then as they move on through clerkships. Overall, the long-term benefit for them is to be able to build on and enhance their skill sets as they move through the four years of medical school and as they get ready for their residency programs. It’ s the building blocks that enhance their skill sets, and for the students themselves to also see the benefits that they’ re really showing improvement and building on their skills. It’ s a combination of the students themselves seeing progress, and the faculty who are interacting with them who realize the skills that they have received and have developed over the four years make them ready for residency.
What considerations did you base the courses on to maximize students’ abilities to grasp the training? This goes back to my own experience working with the CDU / UCLA medical students. I definitely have learned from that, and now that I’ m able to work with first year medical students, what was key was to introduce students to these skills early; the earlier the better. If students are able to start interacting with patients right from the get-go, even if they’ re uncomfortable, there’ s a sort of element of being comfortable with the uncomfortable.
This is a concept that would be important for students to be exposed to early on, because we want to provide a safe environment where students can learn, make mistakes, and grow from that. When I developed the course, it was to be offered in small group settings, where it’ s more of an intimate environment for the students. They can make mistakes, and they can grow from those mistakes.
That’ s been helping the students. They’ re asking for even more. The more practice the better, so that they’ re able to build on their skills and each time that they’ re exposed to interviewing or they’ re exposed to conducting a physical exam, the better they get, the more confidence they have because they realize that that they are improving. I think this is so important, especially in the first year for them to know that they are there, they’ re building and developing
CDU College of Medicine | PG. 28