Last Revision: 12/09

M3 Pediatric Clerkship: Overall Intended Learning Objectives

The overall goals for the third year Pediatric Clerkship are listed below. Our purpose is to outline the core of pediatric knowledge, skills and professional attitudes that are fundamental for all medical students. We have also delineated additional subsection-specific ILOs for each component of the clerkship
.
Knowledge: The student will learn:
1) Normal growth, development and behavior and their assessment, as well as approaches to abnormalities from infancy through adolescence.
2) Health maintenance and preventive care for children, including age-related issues in nutrition, safety, vaccination and risk factor identification and modification.
3) Common acute and chronic pediatric conditions, congenital and genetic syndromes, and the importance of age on their manifestations and treatment.
4) Principles of physiology and pharmacology applicable to children from birth through adulthood, especially age-related changes.

Skills: The student will demonstrate competence in:
1) Communication skills: -
Interacting effectively and sensitively with families, children and adolescents, and with health care teams in verbal and written presentations.
Recognize the important role of patient education in prevention and treatment of disease.
Verbal Presentations: Organize a case presentation to accurately reflect the reason for the evaluation, the chronology of the history, the details of physical findings, the differential diagnosis and the suggested initial evaluation. Include age specific information and precise description of physical findings. Justify the thought process that led to the diagnostic and therapeutic plan.
Written Documentation: Document the independent clinical thinking of the student. When using templates, or their own prior documentation, students should carefully adjust the note to reflect newly completed work and to ensure the note is a useful addition to the medical record.
2) History Taking: From parents, children and adolescents and in more complex situations (e.g. adolescent psychosocial interview, more demanding parent), collecting complete and accurate information and focusing appropriately. - Describe how to modify the interview depending on the age of the child, with particular attention to the following age groups: toddler/preschooler, school-age child, adolescent, including when to address questions to child versus parent.
3) Physical Exams: Exam of infants, children and adolescents, adapting appropriately to the age of the patient.
4) Clinical Problem Solving: Using data from history, physical, labs and studies to define problems, develop a differential diagnosis, and identify associated risks.
5) Clinical Decision Making: Incorporating patient data with patient needs and desires when formulating diagnostic and therapeutic plans for pediatric problems within the context of the patient and their family.
6) Self-Education: Recognizing knowledge deficits and learning needs through a reflective self-assessment process, plan or seek assistance in remediation of knowledge deficits, develop key critical thinking and problem solving skills. Seek feedback.

Professionalism: The student will be expected to:
1) Demonstrate compassion, empathy and respect toward children and families, including respect for the patient's modesty, privacy and confidentiality.
2) Demonstrate communication skills with patients and families that convey respect, integrity, flexibility, sensitivity and compassion.
3) Demonstrate respect for patient, parent, and family attitudes, behaviors and lifestyles, paying particular attention to cultural, ethnic and socioeconomic influences to include actively seeking to elicit and incorporate the patient's, parent's and family's attitudes into the health care plan, showing flexibility to meet the needs of the patient and family.
4) Function as an effective member of the health care team, demonstrating collegiality and respect for all members of the health care team.
5) Demonstrate a positive attitude and regard for education by demonstrating intellectual curiosity, initiative, honesty, responsibility, dedication to being prepared, maturity in soliciting, accepting and acting on feedback, flexibility when differences of opinion arise and reliability.
6) Identify and explore personal strengths, weaknesses and goals.
7) Copying and pasting or otherwise using other's documentation in paper or electronic form as your own is plagarism and medical fraud. This activity will result in a professionalism evaluation in the student's file.

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