Everyone looks forward to clinical school, and with good reason, as it’s a chance to get out into hospitals and actually ‘do’ some medicine. On top of that, ICSM is a great place to be for your next 3 years, with a wide and varied range of hospitals, great locations to live and socialise, and a student body that will welcome you into the fold.

You’ve already got three years experience of medicine (and a degree!) under your belt, but both starting clinical school and moving to a different, often new, location can be challenging.

With that in mind, there is plenty of help and support available, with the Faculty of Medicine, the student-run Students’ Union, and the Graduate Medicine Society (of which you automatically become a member) all on hand to give advice if ever you need it.

On this section of the website you’ll find information on the course structure, info about who to contact if you have any problems, a list of revision resources, and an FAQ section.

Autumn Term

After the shortest summer break so far (unfortunately, it gets much shorter…), you start bright and early at the beginning of September with a short week of Communications Skills, designed to give you an introduction to history taking and speaking with patients in general. This is followed by 2 weeks of Ethics & Law (with the 2nd year Grads), focusing on some of the issues you might encounter in hospital.

Following on from this, you start your first 10-week hospital firm at either Charing Cross or the Hammersmith (joining the rest of the 3rd years), which is in one of the general medical or surgical wards. This term’s learning is mainly to do with perfecting your history-taking skills, and involves weekly online lectures (occasionally face-to-face), and on-ward teaching from your Consultant/Registrars. If you’re lucky (or unlucky), you might end up doing your first night shift in A&E! The term ends with 2 weeks of Clinical Specialities lectures, giving you an insight into specialised medicine that you’ll encounter in years 5 and 6.

Spring Term

This term starts with your Ethics exam (which you need to pass), in the format of 10 short answer questions on a scenario and set of papers given to you a couple of weeks prior (so there is work to do over the Christmas break…). But after that, it’s straight back into hospital for your 2nd 10-week firm, again, medical or surgical (if you haven’t done a surgical firm already). This terms teaching is in the same format as the last firm, but the focus will have shifted to examinations. By the end of this term, you will be expected to efficiently be able to fully clerk a patient (history and examination).

Summer Term

This is pretty much a repeat of the previous term, with your final 10-week medical or surgical firm (again, only if you’ve already had 2 medical firms). There are fewer online lectures, and more revision sessions for histories and examinations this term. Your work and teaching on the wards will be geared towards perfecting your practical skills and revision at home for the dreaded:

Exams

There are 2 exams that give you your results for the year, the OSCE and the written paper. You need to pass both to pass the year; otherwise you will need to re-sit in August.

The OSCE (Objective Structured Clinical Examination) is a test of all the practical skills you are expected to know by the end of 3rd year. It is made up of 12 stations of 10 minutes, each with a specific clinical scenario and task for you to do. There are 4 categories of stations you might face, Histories, Clinical Examinations, Practical Procedures and Explanation, with marks being allocated for the actions you perform, as well as how the ‘patient’ perceives your performance (so be friendly!).

The written paper is a 3-hour exam made up of 20 full Extended Matching Questions (100 individual questions) and 70 Single Best Answer questions. These questions are mainly based around clinical scenarios in general medicine (e.g. a patient comes in with X symptoms, what do they most likely have/how would you treat them?), and a few on ethics and law. You don’t need to learn the speciality subjects, so won’t be tested on things like O&G, Paediatrics or Psychology, but almost everything else is fair game.

As well as the year reps, you can take your DE-specific concerns to the GradMedSoc committee directly, who are always on hand to help. There are always some DE students on the committee who will have been through the first year of clinical school already, so are familiar with the specific problems you might encounter.

Revision Notes 

This part of the page is under construction and will be ready in October

This part of the page is under construction and will be ready in October