The Pre-Clinical curriculum is divided into five sequential Foundation units.

Small group problem-based learning is the core pedagogy in the pre-clinical MFs. During each MF, students are divided into tutorial groups of 6-8 students, with a faculty member acting as the tutor for the group. Tutorials take place twice each week, for about 3 hours each time. In addition to tutorials, students attend some Active Large Group Sessions as a class. Each group also has anatomy and clinical skills sessions.

MEDICAL FOUNDATION 1

• 11 weeks, August to October of first year. All students in their assigned campuses. Focus on introduction to medicine, respiratory, and cardiology.

MEDICAL FOUNDATION 2

• 8 weeks, October to December, finishing prior to the December holiday break. All students in their assigned campuses. Focus on renal and hematology.

MEDICAL FOUNDATION 3

• 12 weeks, January to March of first year, followed by a one-week winter break. All students in their assigned campuses. Focus on GI and Nutrition, Endocrinology, and Reproduction.

MEDICAL FOUNDATION 4

• 12 weeks, April to June of first year, followed by summer break, and then a 7-week block elective. All students in their assigned campuses. Focus on Musculoskeletal Medicine, Neuroscience, and Brain and Behaviour.

INTEGRATION FOUNDATION

• 12 weeks, August to November of second year. All students will review, revisit, and refresh previous learning content and objectives from MF1 to MF4 in the context of complex, multi-system diseases and chronic illness.

The Clinical Skills Program of the UGME Program is designed to allow students to develop an integrated approach to the doctor-patient encounter. The Program has three components: first, verbal data-gathering, which includes communication skills and history-taking; a second component of physical examination skills; and a third component, data interpretation, which rounds out the doctor-patient encounter. This component includes the interpretation of verbal and physical findings from the patient as well as diagnostic tests.

In most MFs, each MF tutorial group works with a clinical skills preceptor in weekly sessions focused on the clinical skills appropriate to the topics being covered in the MF. From the first MF, students begin meeting patients. There are also sessions with Standardized Patients, which allow students to master basic skills before they begin to use these skills with real patients.

The Clinical Skills curriculum and the Professional Competencies curriculum are closely linked in teaching students the basic communication skills so vital to good clinical practice.

As students progress, more specialized clinical skills such as those relating to psychiatric interviewing and ophthalmology are taught using varied formats.

Anatomy is a core foundation of the Pre-Clerkship curriculum and is taught in weekly lab sessions. These sessions involve a station-based, self-guided learning environment with models/protected specimens and pathological specimens available for learning. Faculty preceptors are present during these sessions to expand concepts and bring clinical relevance to the material. Radiology and imaging sessions are interspersed throughout the anatomy curriculum to further integrate fundamental anatomy with modalities for assessing anatomy in vivo.