Medicine and clinical skills laboratories

The main objective of the medical curriculum is to provide medical students with knowledge, skills and attitudes required for their practice. A decade ago, the UK Medical Council issued a report called "Tomorrow's Doctors"(1) which called for the reduction in the factual content of the medical course with the promotion of problem-based and self-dedicated learning. This report was the basis for a move toward an extensive reform of the medical and nursing curricula. The new reformed curricula enhanced the integrated medical teaching and emphasized the teaching and learning of clinical skills. However, there were still concerns about the standards and appropriateness of the skills of new medical graduates.(2)The changes in the teaching and learning methods, the radical changes in the health care delivery and the rapid growth of technology challenged the traditional way of clinical skills development and led to the emergence of clinical skills laboratories (CSLs) in the medical education of many medical and nursing schools. With the proliferation of the CSLs, it is important to evaluate and introduce the reader to their applications, bearing in mind the paucity of information on this subject particularly over the last couple of years. This article is based on literature review.