Primary Care Leadership Track (PCLT) - Pediatrics

Catalog description

The basic course in pediatrics for all students is a six-week clerkship in the second year. Its principal aim is to provide an exposure to the field of child health. The student has a varying series of experiences which should give a grasp of the concepts that underlie the discipline. Goals include acquiring familiarity and competence with the basic tools of information-gathering (history, physical examination, and laboratory data) and developing an approach to the integration of this material for the solution of problems of health and illness in infancy, childhood, and adolescence. This should be accomplished with continuing reference to the basic principles of pathophysiology encountered in the first year courses. Those patients to whom the student is assigned provide the focus for case studies. In addition to the careful history and physical examination which must be recorded, the student is expected to organize an appropriate differential diagnosis and to seek and read pertinent reference material relevant to each patient. The student should learn to present each case verbally in an organized and succinct fashion, to follow the patient's progress, and to interpret all studies which are performed. The student is expected to learn from a number of sources: Internet accessible multimedia clinical cases, standard textbooks and journals, current publications and conferences, and also from people -- house staff, faculty, nurses, parents, and all others with whom contact is made in the clinical setting. Objectives include an understanding of the roles played in pediatrics by other members of the health care team, both in the ambulatory and hospital settings. Patient care may involve nurse, social worker, recreation therapist, psychologist, physiotherapist, dietitian, and others. The six weeks are divided to include time in several of the following settings: (a) Duke…