Something interesting and exciting?

There is something interesting and exciting going on in the
worlds of pathology and medical education...

Okay, I have been told many times that exciting and interesting are words that should never be used to describe anything related to pathology (which to most people appears to be dull and boring!) but I think it’s worth a blog...

Dr Nicki Cohen, a Consultant Neuropathologist at Frenchay
Hospital in Bristol, and Deputy Programme Director for the MB ChB Medical Degree at the University of Bristol, is undertaking a Delphi project for undergraduate pathology education on behalf of the Royal College of Pathologists. This is the first time that I am aware of within the last 20 years that someone has tried to organise a specific curriculum for pathology at undergraduate level. I think
it’s an excellent initiative, as there is currently no set medical student curriculum from either the medical schools council or GMC, each medical school sets its own!

The basic process as I understand it is to seek the opinion of those within the Specialties such as Haematology, Immunology, Clinical Biochemistry, Histopathology, not to mention Microbiology and Virology, as to what constitutes the essential knowledge for newly qualified doctors (Foundation Year 1). Not the stuff we’d like them to know but the stuff they MUST KNOW before getting to the wards. 

I have contributed my “two pennies worth” which is essentially the ten point list from the book, Microbiology Nuts and Bolts.

What do junior doctors need to be able to do?
1. Take a clinical history
2. Perform a clinical examination and elicit relevant clinical
signs
3. Recognise sick patients
4. Implement emergency care for sick patients
5. Formulate a differential diagnosis
6. Investigate a differential diagnosis
7. Prescribe appropriately and safely
8. Monitor and review patients appropriately and
effectively
9. Prevent transmission of infection between patients
10. Recognise their own limitations and when they need to ask for help
 
Just like in the book, I have then fleshed out my response to Dr Nicki Cohen with more detail about the specific areas of:
• Basic concepts, understanding infections, what micro-organisms cause them and where they come from, as well as how to diagnose infections
• Microbiology, investigating patients with infections and how to make the best use of a laboratory microbiology service
• Infection control, how to safely manage patients with transmissible infections without spreading these infections to either themselves or other patients!
• Clinical scenarios, common and important infections, arranged in body systems to make them simple to follow
• Antibiotics, how to prescribe them safely, how to review antibiotics and what to do if patients are failing to respond to treatment, as well as empirical guidelines and information about individual antibiotics
• And emergencies, the life threatening infections, which all doctors cannot afford to miss, and how to manage them

So I know what I think should be in a microbiology curriculum, but what do you think? This question is aimed at medical students, those already qualified and those who can no longer remember medical school! 

If you were setting the infection curriculum, what areas of
infection do you feel you should be taught and how much time would you want set aside for infection teaching?

Post your comments either on our Facebook page or on the Bug Blog, it would be great to hear your ideas…