Teaching clinical skills to pre-clinical medical students: integration with basic science learning

Clinical skills are usually learned by pre-clinical students in a manner divorced from their basic science foundations. The value of previously learned basic sciences thus fails to be re-enforced. A clinical skills course was developed for an experimental curriculum of medical students in their first year. It was organized and taught by a team of basic and clinical scientists and emphasized the basic pathophysiological principles underlying clinical skills. Sessions were supported by related basic science audiovisual resources and a series of clinical problems with questions obliging the student to reason through basic-science mechanisms. Over the span of the course, students' interest shifted dramatically from a focus on proficiency in motor skills to an understanding of basic pathophysiological mechanisms underlying observed phenomena. Compared to conventional curriculum students, those in the experimental curriculum failed to show a diminution in perceived value of basic sciences in their future career and, on cumulative, cognitive examinations, scored equally in basic science, but significantly higher in clinical science subjects. A clinical skills course integrating both teachers and concepts from basic, as well as clinical sciences can improve student attitudes toward basic sciences.