Clinical Skills Education

"On the pedagogic side, modern medicine, like all scientific teaching, is characterized by activity. The student no longer merely watches, listens, memorizes: he does. His own activities in the laboratory and in the clinic are the main factors in his instruction and discipline. An education in medicine nowadays involves both learning and learning how; the student cannot effectively know, unless he knows how."

Abraham Flexner, 1910
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The purpose of a clinical skills curriculum is to articulate an explicit set of clinical competencies to be mastered by medical students as part of undergraduate medical education. As Flexner suggests, the essence of developing clinical skills has not changed in the past century. Learning in this context means doing. What is changing is an emerging re-emphasis upon identifying and articulating the most appropriate set of competencies to be learned in medical school. What is important is not only an ability to perform this or that particular skill, but to engender the habit of skill development that derives from a continuous and mentored educational process.

The clinical skills education project is intended to help develop and expand a clinical skills curricular process for medical students at the University of Virginia. Specifically, its goals are to expand clinical skills teaching, further develop a clinical skills assessment process, and develop an online master clinical skills website to serve the educational, administrative and research functions of the project.

The educational template for the clinical skills curriculum is a reflection of the 12 objectives of medical education at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. These twelve objectives identify the essential skills required to professionally care for a patient in a basic medical encounter. Achieving proficiency in this set of skills should enable the medical graduate to be competent in a set of universal clinical practice abilities that will be applicable throughout a professional lifetime.

It is hoped that by developing a more explicit clinical skill development process in the clerkship year, a better informed preclinical and clinical education process will emerge in our undergraduate medical curriculum. We seek and welcome your contributions and encourage your feedback along the way.

Eugene C. Corbett, Jr., MD

For questions or comments about this website contact
Elizabeth Bradley, PhD at 243-6663 or ejb4a@virginia.edu