Clinical Exposure in Preclinical years

Starting medical school is an exciting time. But, many find themselves launched into one or two years of intense textbooks studying. Without clinical exposure or bedside teachings, pre-clinical years may feel like a science course. It may not feel as real.

The really cool thing about Barts and The London medical school and several other medical schools is the early exposure to clinical setting in pre-clinical years! In year 1, we visit GPs once every forthnight; we would learn the plethora of disease spectrum seen by General Practitioners. In addition to GP practices, year 2 medics would get allocated to one specialist care centre e.g. stroke specialist unit, renal clinics, psychiatric wards, etc.

Honestly, these trips to GPs and psychiatric wards can be a waste of time if we just sit around and don’t take the initiative to get involved. Be curious! The focus seems to be on the appreciation of the social implications of medical diseases. This is the time to actually understand the role of social and cultural factors in medical practice. This is an avenue to practice speaking to patient - to be more comfortable obtaining clinical history and carrying out procedures.

Besides, clinical cases give life to the mundane texts of medical textbooks. It helps to emphasize certain important aspects of a disease profile, helps medical students to better learn and understand the management strategies.

If your medical school doesn’t offer regular clinical placements, these are some of the things you can do!

1. Shadow doctors during your summer holiday. 

IMO, 2 weeks of clinical attachment is a good duration for you to familiarise with the practice, understand the common diseases in the practice i.e. know the common presentations and how they are managed. Even better, ask the doctor to teach you several clinical examination skills. Nothing is more satisfying and enriching than getting hands-on practice on real patients!

2. Signing up for overseas volunteering trips! 

These are typically run by NGOs. Typically, volunteers are medical students, who will be accompanying several doctors, to provide medical services to deprived areas. They welcome pre-clinical year medics and (from what I heard) provide basic clinical skills teaching prior to the trips. Not only will this expose you to practicing medicine in developing countries, this will certainly help in your personal development and needless to say, enhance your summer experience. Each trip usually lasts for 2 weeks. This means that you will be left with a good amount of time for your summer holiday! 

A few organisations that my friends have taken part in are Health Expeditions and Gap Medics.

3. Carry out clinical examinations on your friends and family!

This can be quite tricky if you have zero clinical skills teaching. But, fret not! One of the things medical students do (at least, me) to hone their clinical skills is to watch videos! There are plenty of great videos online on how to carry out clinical examinations. Most of the videos are great and designed to meet the needs of certain groups. This is by no means that they can replace hands-on teaching. GeekyMedics is a good start. Although these videos are neither sufficient nor necessary, it will be a good way to get an idea of how clinical examinations are done and the different pathologic presentations you need to be able to recognise. Not perfect but why not? Using these videos, you can practice these skills on your friends or relatives! It can get awkward really quickly but this surely will whet your appetite for clinical years!