Undergraduate

Photograph of three students looking at a book

Goals

  1. Education of students within the medical school.
  2. Innovate and develop curriculum within the medical school.
  3. Provide leadership within the medical school and amongst faculty.
  4. Provide awareness of physiatry for future physicians.
  5. Foster interest in physiatry among medical students, including advanced selective/elective opportunities for those potentially interested in a career in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.
  6. Develop interest among students in our residency program.

Our department is heavily involved in the undergraduate medical program throughout the four year program.

1. Undergraduate Musculoskeletal Medicine

Our major involvement includes the second year in which we champion the undergraduate Musculoskeletal Medicine course, including Clinical Methods. The Musculoskeletal course involves relevant aspects of Rheumatology, Orthopedics, Physiatry, Pediatrics, Pathology, biomechanics, exercise physiology, and nerve injuries, with an appropriately large emphasis on clinical anatomy. Our department members teach didactic lectures, design curriculum, and assessment items, facilitate anatomy dissection labs, and host small group teaching sessions.

In the second year, we provide lectures within the Neurology block. These lectures involve physiatry related topics such as traumatic brain injury, stroke, and spinal cord injury.

2. PCCIA (Small Group Student Teaching With Facilitator)

Our educators are involved in this teaching in both first and second year, involving patient-centered teaching in a small group setting. Topics can be either student driven or specifically determined by the given teaching block. PCCIA typically involves 3 hour sessions with 8-10 students per week. During each session, the consultant attempts to facilitate education and group learning for the students.

3. Clinical Methods

Clinical Methods involves the education of the entire second year medical school class. Our focus is to teach and solidify an approach to the physical exam of the musculoskeletal system. It also teaches students a clinical and radiologic approach to the musculoskeletal system.

4.Clerkship and Fourth Year Elective

The third and fourth years of the medical school curriculum are clinical and mostly in hospital/clinic. This involves core rotations and electives. There is a “back to basics” fourth year course that brings the fourth year students back to the classroom to review important clinical and didactic material prior to graduation. In the third and fourth year, we work with selective and elective students for 2-4 week rotations. These include inpatient and outpatient experiences for the students over a wide range of specialty and sub-specialty areas of physiatry including stroke rehabilitation, brain injury rehabilitation, spinal cord injury rehabilitation, musculoskeletal medicine, amputee rehabilitation, sports injury and rehabilitation, transition with childhood disabilities and electromyography. We also provide didactic lectures in the third year during the core medicine rotation on physiatry relevant topics with an emphasis on deconditioning and the impact of immobility.

5. Visiting Student Electives

For general information and registration, please visit our Visiting Student Electives page on the Undergraduate Medical Education website for application information.

Please direct specific questions or inquiries by email to Deborah McLaughlin, Program.admin@sjhc.london.on.ca

Our involvement in the undergraduate curriculum is a source of pride for us. We have received positive feedback from the students over the years, and believe that our involvement in the undergraduate curriculum is partly responsible for the great cohort of students that enter PMR from Western. It is our expectation that residents within our program will participate in the education of the medical students in the Western University undergraduate curriculum.