Ethics in the Professional Competencies Unit
The Professional Competencies unit is an innovative, two-year course in the pre-clerkship years that gives students the foundation they need to meet the challenges facing health care providers today.
Sixty-four cases across the two-year course focus on the integrated clinical application of core concepts in population health, ethics, law and evidence-based and patient-centred clinical practice. Topics include:
- end-of-life care planning
- addictions medicine (including responsible prescribing and opioids for chronic pain)
- chronic care
- patient safety
- conflict of interest and industry relations
- cultural competency
- Aboriginal health
- occupational health
- family and intimate partner violence
- collaboration with and support for patient groups and family caregivers
- critical thinking and clinical reasoning
- screening programs and risk communication
- genetic testing
Students have the opportunity to practice and demonstrate their real-world approach to complex issues in innovative Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCE) stations.
The course meets weekly throughout the first two years of medical school, with whole-group sessions followed by tutorial groups, facilitated by pairs of physicians and their collaborators (academic and clinical) in health care.
Dr. Benjamin Capps is currently the unit head of the Professional Competencies unit in Med 1, and all faculty in the department participate in the unit, lecturing, collaborating on case-writing and tutoring in Med 1 and Med 2.
Contact Dr. Capps for further information on the undergraduate Professional Compentencies unit.