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.