Forty-nine medical students from Qatar University College of Medicine (QU-CMED) began their clinical placements this fall, complementing their learning within a clinical setting at six primary healthcare centres.
The placements for students from the second to fourth year of the medical programme will mostly take place in Primary Health Care Corp (PHCC) centres, while clinical training as of the fourth year will involve secondary and tertiary care and take place mostly at Hamad Medical Corp hospitals, according to a press statement from QU.
This fall, the participating health centres are West Bay, Omar Bin Khattab, Al Daayen, Leabaib, Umm Ghuwailina and Al Gharafa.
According to CMED associate dean for academic affairs Prof Hossam Hamdy, such early exposure to the clinical environment is not common and medical students normally have their first clinical contact in Year 3.
However, as evidence shows, early exposure to the clinical setting provides students not only with increased confidence and familiarity in communicating effectively with patients, but also with more solid knowledge-attainment skills that are rooted in experiential learning and based on a patient-centred approach, Prof Hamdy clarifies.
Prof Alison Carr, CMED’s head of clinical education and professor, leading the clinical placement initiative, noted: “These opportunities help students make sense of the knowledge they have acquired from studying at the university, allowing them to combine theoretical and experiential learning and develop their knowledge in a more contextualised way.”
Dr Noora al-Mutawa, head of clinical training and consultant, family medicine, at PHCC, added: “By providing support to second-year medical students at Qatar University through clinical placements, PHCC contributes to building their insight and knowledge about population health in Qatar.”
Early clinical placements are in line with CMED’s teaching philosophy, which adopts a patient-centred educational method promoting patients as the focus of the educational process.
Early clinical placements are also linked to the college’s adoption of problem-based learning – a case-based teaching method.