Teaching evidence-based medicine to undergraduate medical students: a course integrating ethics, audit, management and clinical epidemiology

Abstract

A six-week full time course for third-year undergraduate medical students at Imperial College uniquely links evidence-based medicine (EBM) with ethics and the management of change in health services. It is mounted jointly by the Medical and Business Schools and features an experiential approach. Small teams of students use a problem-based strategy to address practical issues identified from a range of clinical placements in primary and secondary care settings. The majority of these junior clinical students achieve important objectives for learning about teamwork, critical appraisal, applied ethics and health care organisations. Their work often influences the care received by patients in the host clinical units. We discuss the strengths of the course in relation to other accounts of programmes in EBM. We give examples of recurring experiences from successive cohorts and discuss assessment issues and how our multi-phasic evaluation informs evolution of the course and the potential for future developments.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Martin Rhodes

MARTIN RHODES is a general practitioner in Harrow and Senior Teaching Fellow in the Department of Primary Care and Social Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College, London. He is a course co-ordinator for the course ‘The ethics and practice of introducing evidence-based medicine (EBM) in to patient care’.

Richard Ashcroft

RICHARD ASHCROFT is Reader in Biomedical Ethics at Imperial College London, and Head of the Medical Ethics Unit. His teaching interests cover medical ethics, ethics in genetics and medical research ethics in evidence-based medicine, public health and health policy. His research is in the area of ethics in medical research.

Rifat A. Atun

RIFAT ATUN is the Director of Centre for Health Management at Tanaka Business School, Imperial College London with research interest in health systems and introduction of complex health innovations. He's a Member of Health Systems Development Advisory Group at WHO. He was Associate Dean at the Department of Postgraduate General Practice, University of London.

George K. Freeman

GEORGE FREEMAN has been Professor of General Practice at Imperial College London since 1993, with a major role in developing the new undergraduate curriculum. Previously, he had tutored many student clinical projects in Southampton. His major research interest is the patient–doctor relationship, especially continuity of care.

Konrad Jamrozik

KONRAD JAMROZIK initially trained in Adelaide and Hobart before completing a doctorate in clinical epidemiology in Oxford. After holding lectureships in public health in Universities in Papua New Guinea and Western Australia, he moved to London to take up a chair in Primary Care Epidemiology at Imperial College in December 2000.