Curriculum

MBBS PROGRAM LEARNING OUTCOMES

Knowledge

On successful completion of the MBBS program, graduates will be able to:

Recognize the normal structure and function of the human body (as an intact organism) and of each of its major organ systems, taking cognizance of the molecular, biochemical, and cellular mechanisms that are important in maintaining the body’s homeostasis.
Recognize and relate the various causes (genetic, developmental, metabolic, toxic, microbiologic, autoimmune, neoplastic, degenerative, and traumatic) of illness/disease and the ways in which they interfere with normal function of the body (pathogenesis).
Recognize the altered structure and function (pathology and pathophysiology) of the body and its major organ systems that are seen in various diseases and conditions.
Recognize the important non-biological determinants of health and of the economic, psychological, social, and cultural factors that contribute to the development and/or continuation of disease.
Identify the most frequent clinical, laboratory, radiological, and pathologic manifestations of common diseases.
Recognize the power of “the scientific method” in establishing the causation of disease and efficacy of traditional and non-traditional therapies.
Describe the principles of disease prevention and epidemiology of common diseases appropriate for specific populations.
Demonstrate knowledge of the laws and systems of professional regulation through the UAE Ministry of Health, relevant to medical practice and abide by the UAE’s Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct.
Understand the framework in which medicine is practiced in the UAE, and the roles of, and relationships between the MOH, Health Authorities and the private health sector in protecting and promoting individual and population health.

Skills

The ability to obtain an accurate holistic medical history that covers all essential aspects of a patient and his/her problem, including issues related to age, gender and socio-economic status.
Apply a medical problem-solving process in order to arrive at a clinical diagnosis.
Perform both a complete and a focused organ system specific examination, including a mental status examination.
Perform routine technical procedures at a level suitable to a fresh medical graduate.
Construct appropriate management strategies (both diagnostic and therapeutic) for patients with common conditions related to different age groups and genders, both acute and chronic, including medical, psychiatric, and surgical conditions, and those requiring short- and long-term rehabilitation.
Formulate a treatment plan, demonstrating the ability to take action by balancing the relative risks and benefits of outcomes and treatment options.
Recognize patients with immediately life threatening cardiac, pulmonary, or neurological conditions regardless of etiology, and to institute appropriate initial therapy applying Basic Life Support and Advanced Life Support principles.
Interpret laboratory tests (recognizing their limitations), and integrate clinical and laboratory findings in the diagnosis and management of a patient’s problem.
Document and share patient-specific information, demonstrating the ability to record in the hospital management systems, specific findings about a patient and orders directing the further care of the patient.
Define and describe the characteristics of a population, to include its demography, cultural and socioeconomic constitution, circumstances of living, and health status, and to relate these factors to the health and health care of patients and their families.
Recognize own personal and professional limits and seek help from colleagues and supervisors when necessary.

COMPETENCIES

Autonomy and Responsibility

Acquire, assess, apply and integrate new knowledge, learn to adapt to changing circumstances and ensure that patients receive the highest level of professional care.
Show responsibility and independent technical and clinical decision-making to evaluate and manage complex and unpredictable clinical work appropriate to a primary care practice.
Illustrate adherence to current best practice methods in a mature manner.

Role in Context

Function effectively as a mentor and teacher including contributing to the appraisal, assessment and review of colleagues, giving effective feedback, and taking advantage of opportunities to develop these skills.
Understand and respect the roles and expertise of health and social care professionals in the context of working and learning as an interdisciplinary team.
Demonstrate ability to build team capacity and positive working relationships and undertake various team roles including leadership and the ability to accept leadership by others.
Demonstrate awareness of the role of doctors as managers, including seeking ways to continually improve the use and prioritization of resources.

Self-Development

Establish the foundations for lifelong learning and continuing professional development appropriate to a fresh medical graduate.
Continually and systematically reflect on practice to evaluate and improve care of patients with aim of safeguarding a high quality of clinical care.
Recognize own personal health needs, consult and follow the advice of a suitably qualified professional, and protect patients from any risk posed by own health.
Value professional ethics, positive criticism and feedback, and engage in a life-long learning.
Be polite, considerate, trustworthy and honest, act with integrity, maintain confidentiality, respect patients’ dignity and privacy, and understand the importance of appropriate consent and respect all patients, colleagues and others regardless of their age, colour, religion, culture, disability, ethnic or national origin, gender, or social or economic status.

CURRICULUM DESCRIPTION

The curriculum consists of full-time one year of Foundation and five years of medical studies.

The Foundation Year

It was decided to start with a foundation year as we expect most of our potential students to come from diverse backgrounds with varying levels of high school attainment, depending on the type of curriculum they studied (e.g. UAE National, American, British, Indian, French, etc curricula are on offer in the UAE). The Foundation Year is necessary to raise levels of science knowledge before commencing the five-year medical program. The courses to be taken include Human Biology (Anatomy & Physiology), Introduction to Biochemistry, Medical Physics and Medical Terminology. In addition, the students will complete four of the five University required general education courses during the foundation year. This helps to ensure that they can comfortably complete all University general education compulsory and elective courses before the clinical years, when it is logistically very difficult.

The Five-Year Medical Program

The program is designed as an integrated, systems based, spiral curriculum, which is divided into three phases. There is both horizontal and vertical integration such that as the student progresses through the phases, they revisit the same organ systems at higher levels of complexity and clinical content until graduation.

A unique feature of the proposed curriculum is the application of “Parallel Courses”. These are semester long courses running alongside (parallel to) the integrated blocks. In many instances, the parallel courses align their content to the blocks but they do not have to. For example, the content of the Molecular Medicine parallel course in Semester I (MOL 114) will be aligned with the GIT 113 block such that GI Biochemistry (digestion/absorption), will be taught at the appropriate time.

Parallel courses address one of the main criticisms in integrated PBL-type curricula; the niggling feeling that the students are not learning core concepts in sufficient depth. In this regards certain subject areas tend to lose out more than others. These include Molecular Medicine and Genetics (so important in the medicine of the future), Behavioral Science, Biostatistics, Evidence Based Medicine, etc. Quite often it is difficult to come up with PBL cases that would generate fundamental concepts in these areas as “learning needs”.

A secondary advantage of the parallel courses option is that the program has greater flexibility in formally introducing new or topical subjects into the curriculum, e.g. simple one credit hour courses in Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM), Forensic Medicine, Medical Informatics, etc, has potential to greatly enrich the curriculum. Such flexibility is lacking or limited in the common integrated curricula on offer at most medical schools in the region. Experience at a young medical school (

Phase I (4 Semesters)

Semesters I and II: In these two semesters, the core curriculum is presented as integrated organ systems concentrating essentially on structure and function only. In addition to the lectures and labs being copiously illustrated with clinical examples, there are TBL (Team-Based Learning) sessions at the end of each week where cases for problem solving are used to consolidate learning.
Semesters III and IV: A ten-week block called pathogenesis of disease (POD), is introduced in Semester III. During the POD block, the students are introduced to fundamentals of Pathology, Pharmacology, Microbiology and Immunology. The cases and TBLs in this block are richer in clinical content. Semester IV is the transition between Phase I and Phase II. In the core blocks during this semester (Head and Neck and Skin, Neuroscience and Special Senses), structure function is fully integrated with the clinical sciences. The learning in each week is anchored by a clinical case which drives the theme for the lectures, labs and clinical skills sessions.

Phase II (2 Semesters)

Semesters V and VI: During these two semesters in Phase II, the organ systems are revisited but the blocks are disease-based with limited structure function overviews only. Each week’s learning is themed according to the clinical case of the week.

The principal rationale for this phase is to get the students to study most of the key pathological conditions in each organ system. This addresses an important challenge in medical education in the UAE and the region at large. Medical schools generally lack leverage when it comes to recruitment of hospital consultants involved in clinical training of medical students during the clerkship years. This is especially problematic when existing government or other hospital facilities are used for training. Although this has improved somewhat, the training of adjunct clinical faculty involved in teaching medical students remains a challenge. An additional challenge is the difficulties encountered by medical students in accessing patients to complete their prescribed number of patients they must interview (clerk) and examine. The Phase II program helps the student to be much better prepared for the clinical clerkship phase, minimizing the need for a lot of handholding by the clinical adjunct faculty.

Phase III (Four 20-week Semesters)

Consists of four semesters (7-10) of clinical rotations in designated hospitals, including Medicine, Surgery, Paediatrics and Obstetrics and Gynaecology; and their sub-specialties. Each rotation is 10 weeks in the major specialties and two to three weeks in each sub-specialties.

GRADUATION REQUIREMENTS

Students will be awarded the MBBS degree upon fulfilment of the following requirements:

Completing successfully the required credit hours (224 Credit Hours), including the University requirement courses, with an cumulative grade point average (CGPA) not less than 2.5 (out of 4) and obtaining a minimum grade of C in every course.