These frequently asked questions will be regularly updated and added to as the project progresses. If you have a question that is not answered here, please let us know by emailing med.md-design@uq.edu.au.
Latest update: December 2022
Why do we need another change to the MD program?
The University of Queensland (UQ) Doctor of Medicine (MD) program is a solid program producing sound doctors. Our students benefit from being taught by world-class clinicians, educators, and researchers in a range of excellent facilities across Brisbane, Queensland, and Louisiana.
There are several drivers for a major change to our current MD program, which are summarised below.
- The need for expertise in managing chronic disease and multimorbidity as well as acute conditions both in hospital and in the community is increasing;
- Models of care are more team-focussed requiring doctors to be aware of other members of the multidisciplinary team as well as having the skills to work effectively with them;
- Our graduates report feeling less prepared for internship than the national average and the current UQ MD program is an outlier in not currently having a specific pre-internship placement;
- The current program structure is complicated and a more streamlined approach with enhanced integration of material and clarification of learning outcomes will optimise learning and performance;
- Our commitment to providing an appropriate future workforce for population needs requires us to promote a full range of medical careers including generalist careers in hospital and community as well as sub specialty medical careers;
- As a world-class medical program in a Go8 University we must keep up with our competitors in terms of applicability of our MD program to current and future medical workforce requirements.
What is different about MD Design?
MD Design is a fully integrated, learner-centred program where students are encouraged to participate actively in their learning. The program is ‘outcomes-based’ meaning that expectation about the level of knowledge, skill and standards of professionalism and behaviour are clearly stated. The assessment strategy encourages continuous learning where skills development and professional growth are valued as well as knowledge and an ability to apply it in a variety of settings.
What is the structure of the new MD program?
Our new UQ MD remains a four-year, post-graduate program, with learning and teaching in each year building on what has come before in a coherent and cohesive way. Learning outcomes are staged across the four years and build towards overarching program level graduate attributes. The proportion of learning undertaken in a clinical setting will progressively increase from Year 1 through to full clinical immersion from Year 3 and a transition to practice focus in the second half of Year 4. The assessment strategy involves regular reviews of knowledge and ability, as well as self-reviews enabling development of self-evaluation skills. A culture of constructive and supportive feedback will contribute to learning. Information gathered across the year will be combined to inform progression decisions at the end of the year.
What is the rationale behind the six Themes of the well-rounded doctor?
Our Vision for our new UQ MD program is to nurture and educate future medical graduates who are clinically capable, team players, kind and compassionate, serve responsibly and are dedicated to the continual improvement of the health of people and communities in Queensland, Australia and across the globe. Our Mission is to strive to be internationally renowned for living our values and our innovative approach to medical education.
The six primary roles of a well-rounded doctor are encapsulated in the six Themes running through the entire four years of the MD program, which are integral to the program’s design. Future UQ MD graduates will have achieved the learning outcomes in each of these roles.
Our medical graduates will be representative of the populations they serve, and distinctive as:
- Safe and effective clinicians who are clinically capable, person-centred and demonstrate sound clinical judgement
- Critical thinkers, scientists and scholars who have a thorough knowledge and understanding of the scientific basis of medicine and can apply evidence to support clinical decision making, research and knowledge generation
- Kind and compassionate professionals who are sensitive, responsive, communicate clearly and act with integrity
- Partners and team players who collaborate effectively and show leadership in the provision of clinical care and health-related education and research
- Dynamic learners and educators who continue to adapt and have a passion for and commitment to lifelong learning
- Advocates for health improvement who stand with people and are able to positively and responsibly impact the health of individuals, communities and populations.
Advocate for Health Improvement
Individuals’ health is affected (in positive and negative ways) by a range of factors that are largely outside of their control. These include their socio-economic status, cultures, experiences of racism, stigma, and discrimination, where they live, as well as environmental, political, and commercial factors affecting the population. It is important for doctors to consider their patients in the context of these factors, and to advocate with their patients where these factors can be addressed. In addition, doctors need to be aware of and address their own biases that may impact on the quality of the care that they and their colleagues provide. Doctors also need to be able to identify current and future threats to health and wellbeing, such as the climate crisis, and how they can contribute to adaptation while making the health system more sustainable. All doctors in Australia need to have expertise in Indigenous health and know how they can work with First Nations Australians to build on their strengths to enhance their health and wellbeing in a culturally competent way. The Advocate for Health Improvement Theme ensures that future graduates of the MD program have the knowledge, skills, and ways of being that enables them to provide optimal care in their clinical practice, in cities, regional towns and rural and remote areas.
For further information, view the Advocate for Health Improvement Theme video.
Critical Thinker, Scientist and Scholar
“CTSS” encompasses the scientific basis for clinical medicine, to produce a well-rounded doctor when integrated with the other Themes. CTSS addresses the specific graduate attributes relating to the application of fundamental scientific concepts to clinical practice and a critical approach to contributing to and applying new knowledge to the understanding of health and disease.
For further information, view the Critical Thinker, Scientist and Scholar Theme video.
Is the CTSS Theme just Biomedical Sciences by another name?
No. CTSS will encompass all the traditional biomedical sciences important in clinical medicine such as anatomy, physiology, histology, biochemistry, immunology, pathology, and epidemiology. However, this is developed in an integrated way between these individual disciplines and to include other clinically relevant sciences including behavioural sciences, with strong emphasis on clinical application.
Development of critical thinking skills will be a key focus within CTSS, moving from teaching by the dissemination of accumulated knowledge to more autonomous and critically engaged learning, developing strategies to support sustainable life-long learning for evaluation of new knowledge. The understanding of the processes of reasoning (from deductive to inductive) in the application of scientific principles to clinical practice will be a key element in CTSS.
Given the MD program now has pre-requisites, will there be assumed knowledge?
There will be an assumed level of background knowledge in the areas of integrative cell and tissue biology and systems physiology. From this baseline, application of this knowledge to clinical problems will be developed.
Dynamic Learner and Educator
Why should medical students learn about learning?
Students will be more effective and efficient learners if they understand the fundamental principles of learning.
Because medical students are not alone in their learning journey, learning to learn collaboratively will enhance that learning journey. Medical students contribute to the learning of their peers through their behaviour, through the questions that they ask, and through the answers that they give and the observations they make; but students will need to learn how to do this effectively for it to benefit them.
Why is there a Theme in the program dedicated to learning?
Medical professionalism requires that medical students commit to a lifetime of learning when they commit to a career in medicine. Therefore, developing an appreciation of the principles of effective learning will stand students in good stead at the beginning of, and during, a career that requires a lifelong commitment to self-directed continuous learning.
Not only will students be learners throughout the entirety of their medical careers; they will also be educators. The role of medical doctors as educators extends to facilitating the learning of patients, of patients’ family members, and of the members of the interprofessional, extended, care team. Not only that, but, as explained below, medical learners have an educative impact on their “teachers.”
What is the idea of “dynamism” in the Theme Dynamic Learner and Educator?
There are two aspects of medical learning that are “dynamic:”
The experiences in which learning takes place over the course of a medical career are many and varied, and so are our students. Therefore, the kind of “dynamism” needed is the ability to switch, with agility, between such diverse learning experiences, whilst maximising the learning from them. We know that being an actively participating, engaged learner is much more effective than being a passive recipient of content.
There is also a dynamism in the interactions between learners and their educators. As learners, we absorb so much more from our mentors than “content,” through observing our teachers’ behaviour, interactions, and methods. As educators, we learn more about what we are “teaching” and about the effectiveness of our approaches, and we are always educating others through our behaviour. Our behaviour, at all times, is part of the “hidden curriculum” and is implicitly validated to the extent that it is accepted or reinforced in context.
For further information, view the Dynamic Learner and Educator Theme video.
Kind and Compassionate Professional
Innate kindness, compassion and professionalism can be variable in expression. These qualities, skills and behaviours are learnt by students whether taught explicitly or not. Having these values/topics explicitly identified within our curriculum ensures that they are embedded into learning experiences and modelled by our staff. A focus on kindness, compassion and professionalism ensures better patient outcomes (quantitative and qualitative); better practitioner outcomes and longevity/satisfaction in the workplace; and better organisational/institutional outcomes.
Compassion in health care/medicine includes a high order clinical reasoning skill set that is not an alternative to clinical excellence, but a pillar of clinical excellence. Teaching and learning this concept does not replace the need to learn core knowledge, skills, or behaviours. It is a core area of knowledge, skill, and behaviour.
For further information, view the Kind and Compassionate Professional Theme video.
Can you learn kindness, empathy, and compassion?
In short, yes.
Empathy is an emotional ability – to feel in oneself the emotions felt by another. It is at least partly innate and often culturally modulated.
Kindness is a behaviour – the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate.
Compassion is a motivation facilitated by a skill – observing and correctly interpreting suffering and taking appropriate action to assuage or prevent that suffering.
This learning occurs through intentional exposure to concepts and methods of kindness and compassion that have been directly mapped to staged learning outcomes and specific learning experiences identified that support the students’ learning. These are integrated across the courses of the program and the clinical disciplines and medical sciences.
How will components of this theme be meaningfully assessed?
Students will demonstrate knowledge (literacy in these concepts), skills – like all clinical skills and professional engagement, demonstrating behaviours that can be evaluated in various contexts of learning. There are multiple modalities of assessment that map to the staged learning outcomes of this Theme and will support assessment across the program.
Should concepts like kindness and compassion be given dedicated space in our curriculum?
Our MD program aims for students to learn evidence based, whole of person care, to be ready to practice upon graduation. There is a body of scientific evidence to support the integration of compassion into clinical practice as part of clinical excellence, self-care and wellbeing and medical education. Our previous MD programs have taught compassion and kindness. The new program incorporates this more explicitly and consistently. We (and our patients and colleagues) do not have to choose between clinical excellence and compassion. They are synergistic, not mutually exclusive.
Partner and Team Player
Due to advances in medical science and healthcare, more people are living meaningful and functional lives with chronic illness, disability, and multiple medical conditions than ever before. Effective healthcare today is therefore a complex multi-professional and multiagency enterprise. The healthcare team comprises many members including doctors, nurses, and allied health professionals, each with an indispensable role.
All doctors, whether a general practitioner caring for and coordinating the healthcare of patients within the community, a physician collaborating with other health professionals in a hospital setting, or a surgeon leading a team in an operating theatre, need to be effective team players. This requires the knowledge, and skills to be effective team leaders and/or team members, according to the needs of the clinical or healthcare context. The skills of leadership and followership are equally important skills for doctors.
Partnering with patients and carers in their health care journey, helping people navigate an increasingly complex healthcare system, communicating effectively within and across different healthcare systems, demonstrating excellence in clinical handover and working collaboratively with patients and colleagues to achieve whole person care, is at the core of good medical practice.
When health professionals are partners and team players, a positive and effective workplace culture exists. This not only contributes to patient safety and quality care but also enhances wellbeing and reduces burnout of health professionals. The new MD aims to prepare students to be effective partners and team players from day 1 of their internship.
For further information, view the Partner and Team Player Theme video.
Safe and Effective Clinician
The graduate attributes relating to the Safe and Effective Clinician Theme specify the attainment of key elements required to be a good doctor, such as communications skills, clinical judgement, history taking, examination and procedural skills, clinical reasoning, ability to synthesise multiple sources of information, formulation of a management plan and accurate documentation. They incorporate safe prescribing, involving the patient and their carers in decision making, the management of acute and chronic disease and importantly, end of life care including when not to intervene.
The Safe and Effective Clinician Theme has developed a series of staged learning outcomes across the four years of the program to ensure the UQ MD graduate has acquired these attributes and skills to enable a smooth transition into being a practising junior doctor, and to equip them to work effectively in a variety of hospital and community settings. Yet a truly safe and effective clinician is much more than an individual who has excelled in the clinical practice aspects of their undergraduate training. They must also have an in-depth knowledge base, practice evidence-based medicine and have a capacity for critical thinking. They must be kind and compassionate, not only to their patients, but to relatives, health professional colleagues and of course themselves. They must work well as part of the healthcare team and value the contribution of others. They need to be a passionate advocate for their patient and have an in depth understanding of the social and environmental aspects which influence their health status. Finally, they must have attained the skills required to be a lifelong learner as well as the capacity to develop a mentoring role as they build experience across their career. Therefore, the full integration of all six Themes is ultimately required to really become a safe and effective clinician.
For further information, view the Safe and Effective Clinician Theme video.
What is the role of the clinical disciplines in the new MD program?
Traditionally, medical school curricula have been primarily structured according to specialty disciplines, with individual courses or placements in areas such as Pathology, Surgery and Psychiatry. The new MD program structure integrates all disciplines by centring on staged learning outcomes within a new model of year-long courses, fostering a whole person rather than problem-focused approach to patient assessment and care. The program continues to respect and value the in-depth expertise of the sub-specialist and the knowledge breadth of the generalist. Critical input from specialty and clinical science groups has been combined with integrated curriculum design approaches, producing a well scaffolded learning and assessment program that supports students learning multidisciplinary knowledge and a comprehensive suite of professional capabilities which are assessed meaningfully during year-long or semester-long courses. UQ MD graduates will be even better prepared for their career launch as an intern with the capability of a life-long learner. All UQ MD graduates will be primed to engage with any medical career pathway, whilst having the opportunity to broaden or deepen their knowledge and experience in areas of personal interest through the elements of choice embedded in Years 2, 3 and 4 of the program.
What is the longitudinal clinical experience in Year 2?
In Year 2, students will have the opportunity to engage in stage-appropriate clinical learning via longitudinal placements in a variety of hospital and primary care settings. In the first half of the year, students will undertake half-day longitudinal placements in general medicine and surgery outpatient departments or similar, in which they will be attached to a clinical supervisor and will have opportunity to observe the clinical environment and interact with the medical team. In the second half of the year, students will undertake longitudinal General Practice placements for a day of each week, remaining with one practice to ensure consistency of their supervisory relationship and opportunity to become meaningfully involved in the practice team.
Longitudinal placements will take place, wherever possible, within the geographical footprint of the Learning Community to which the student belongs.
Will students have a research experience in the new MD program?
From week one, students will be introduced to research through an overarching premise of the clinical application of scientific evidence. This principle underpins the discovery of knowledge throughout the MD program, focussing on the importance of biomedical research to all aspects of clinical practice and developing skills to help future MD graduates become clinician researchers.
Year 1 develops the skills of accessing, comprehending, and critiquing the primary scientific literature to expand an understanding of research evidence and the key components of the research process.
Required research activities will methodically demonstrate the key components of the research process and be enhanced through symposia and workshops intertwined with stories of discovery linked to the clinical topics throughout Years 1 and 2.
In Year 2 all students will receive training in research methodology in whole of cohort teaching. Those undertaking the Research selective will get the opportunity to undertake a research project.
The Clinician Scientist Track (MD-PhD and MD-MPhil) represents a program of study that allows eligible students to incorporate a Higher Degree by Research (HDR), either a PhD or an MPhil with the MD degree. Successful applicants will commence the PhD after completion of Year 2.
In Year 3 students will come together in groups to undertake a ‘group scholarly project.’ Key points here are ‘scholarly’ and ‘group.’ The objective is to develop teamwork through investigating a topic or problem, exploring an idea or answering a question with the view of implementing or sharing their findings. Quality improvement projects, systematic reviews, medical education studies or creative work related to themes are potential examples.
Year 4 unites all four MD years through participation in the annual Medical Student Research Conference and Showcase. The conference is organised exclusively by medical students with participation by all students either as conveners, organisers, presenters, or audience members.
What is a Learning Community?
In our UQ MD Design context, Learning Communities (LCs) are clusters of health care facilities within a geographic footprint, including hospital and community-based services and general practices. Importantly, LCs comprise the students and staff based in the facilities and provide a learning environment where everyone can flourish, where mutually supportive relationships and connections are forged, and students nurtured.
- Safe and effective clinicians and partners and team players are developed through role modelling, coaching, mentoring, teamwork, and leadership in clinical practise which is supported through enduring, trusting, longitudinal relationships with clinicians and peers
- Providing an enduring framework for students and staff to work together, share ideas, skills, and perspectives, and be supported in learning provides synergy in scholarly endeavours to support the critical thinker, scientist, and scholar
- The wellbeing of learners and teachers is key to empowering them to fulfil their roles as kind and compassionate professionals and advocates for health improvement, and learning communities provide a safe space where members are valued, supported and cared for
- Providing a vehicle for personal and professional growth is essential for the development of students and faculty across the continuum of learning so that the role of dynamic learner and educator is manifest.
Learning communities will enhance a sense of belonging and collegiality, allow greater transparency and consistency of teaching and learning activities, and enhance student and staff experiences of their roles.
How will students know whether they are progressing adequately during the year?
Students will engage in regular, frequent, and low stakes assessment tasks. These tasks will create opportunities for students to receive and act upon feedback to improve their performance. This approach will ensure that students are aware of their progress.
Assessment tasks will be designed to ensure that students actively engage with, take full advantage of and make sense of feedback information available to them. Students will be encouraged to take ownership of their current learning needs, develop a plan for improvement through a Self-Review (SR) Report and in turn manage their trajectory towards achievement to maximise their capability. This process will be supported through the development of the student’s feedback and assessment literacy and evaluative judgement capabilities during the Transition to the MD learning period in weeks 1-4 of Year 1.
These periods of assessment FOR learning dovetail with points in time where assessment OF learning occurs known as the Progress Review (PR). The purpose of the PR is to review the student’s performance across the three assessment components (Knowledge, Clinical Skills, Professionalism and Engagement) drawing on information from across the year and the student’s SR Report. Through the PR process, students will receive additional guidance regarding their progress towards the end of year staged learning outcomes. The level of achievement at each stage of the program is clearly defined with descriptors illustrating the expected standard and where it is identified that there is a gap in one or more of the key assessment components additional activities will be offered to assist them to bridge this gap. This will occur in predefined “learning development weeks” during the year to provide every opportunity for students to demonstrate that they meet the end of year requirements.
Will academic guidance and study support and advice continue in the new program?
All the existing academic guidance and student support services will continue for students enrolled in the new program. In addition, it is hoped that several features of the new program will assist with the earlier identification of those requiring additional support and guidance, including connection to small peer groups, consistent facilitation of small group learning experiences, and association with Learning Communities. The assessment strategy also provides ongoing opportunities for students to self-evaluate their progress, and for academic staff to monitor and observe and guide their progress at review points throughout the year.
How will progression decisions be made?
A key aspect of the design of the UQ MD program is the development and implementation of an integrated, whole-of-program approach to assessment. This approach is designed to support student learning and assist in the early identification and support of students identified at risk of not meeting the required standards for progression.
The assessment approach will encompass a series of interlinked stages. Ongoing assessment information including feedback provides a series of data points for students to consider as part of a structured self-review process. Students will consider their progress and identify the actions they need to take, with guidance from their educational advisor (assessment for learning). At points in time during the year the aggregated information provides an overall picture of student progress (assessment of learning) and is reviewed by the Progress Review panel.
Progression decisions will be made at the end of the academic year by the MD Board of Examiners as part of a Final Review (FR) process (assessment of learning). A decision will be made about whether students have met the end of year standard which for first year students requires them to meet the passing standard in each of the three assessment components (Knowledge, Clinical Skills, Professionalism and Engagement); therefore, indicating they have met all year level learning outcomes and are ready to progress to Year 2.
Students who are deemed to have ‘marginally not met the standard’ will be offered an additional (supplementary) assessment opportunity to gather additional information for consideration. The MD Board of Examiners will then make final progression decisions.
Students who have not met the standard at the FR and are well below the passing standard in any of the three components will be required to repeat the year. It is anticipated that very few students would fall into this category due to the longitudinal assessment system with cycles of Self Reviews and Progress Reviews culminating in the FR process.