Students can expect lecturers from both from Clinical Faculty and Teaching Faculty in the Foundational Sciences.

In the Faculty of Medicine, most lectures are videoconferenced to all sites, and students will meet lecturers from around the Province. Our teaching and administrative faculty are some of the best in the world, and leaders in their field.

Case-Based Learning (CBL) is an approach to small group learning for students in Years 1 and 2 of the Undergraduate Medical Education Program. The CBL tutor guides a group of 8 students through a weekly case pertaining to the week topic.

The CBL cases are designed to shift the focus of student learning from foundational science to clinical knowledge and skills development, with opportunities to demonstrate communication skills and model professional behaviors.

Over three tutorials a week (Year 1), or two tutorials a week (Year 2), students are presented with patient information and probing questions to articulate, elaborate, and apply medical science knowledge and develop differential diagnoses and patient management approaches. This active learning solidifies the students’ knowledge and understanding of the pathogenesis and pathophysiology of disease processes. Throughout Year 1 and Year 2, the cases will progressively increase in difficulty and become more undifferentiated.

Each week, your CBL Group will explore the diagnosis, etiology, and treatment of a patient are the CBL Group collective responsibility, and you’ll work with the different members of your group to make the most of each student’s knowledge and abilities.

The learning format is designed for you to develop skills such as thinking as a clinician and working effectively in a team. The CBL tutorials will underpin much of your learning throughout the first two years of the UGME Program, supported by lectures, labs, and self-directed learning.

Family Medicine and Clinical Skills sessions focus on the practical application of other course material.

Clinical Skills

In the first term, Introduction to Communication Skills, students will conduct interviews with volunteer and standardized patients and develop the skills necessary to take a medical history and deal with unique patient interactions. This will be followed by the Introduction to Clinical Skills portion of the course where students build their foundational clinical skills by obtaining vital signs and practicing a cardiac, respiratory and abdominal physical examine on a volunteer patient. In the second term, students will further spiral their clinical skills in cardiac, respiratory, gastrointestinal, ultrasound, neurology, peripheral vascular and otolaryngology by performing a focused medical history and conducting a physical examination.

Family Medicine

In the first year of Family Medicine, students will have seminars, lectures, and visits to a Family Medicine office. Office Visits will include both in person and virtual/telehealth opportunities. They will learn and practice interviewing skills, taking vital signs, and diagnosing patients with their preceptors. MEDD 411 Seminars will cover Basic Suturing, Mindfulness & Reflections, Vital Signs, Office Procedures, Physical Activity and Hypertension. Lectures themes will be Health Equities practices and Sexual Assault. In MEDD 412 students will continue practicing examining real patients at a preceptor’s office. They will also have seminars on Menopause, Palliative Care, Headache and Fatigue.

(e.g. Extended Case Learning, Seminars, Workshops, Interprofessional Sessions)

Interactive sessions are mixed in format to encourage student participation through a variety of means. These sessions emphasize the many facets of medicine, and often have content experts from a variety of backgrounds.