MEDI3000 is delivered in two parts over the course of the third year of the MBBS program. Both parts consist of 24 units, and both need to be satisfactorily completed in order to pass. The end of year summative assessment is an integrated examination covering all material presented in the course of third year, building on the first two years of the program.

Rotation: Integrated Child and Community Health (ICCH)

Rotation: Foundations of Internal Medicine and Surgery (FIMS)

The Year 3 terms are designed to immerse students in a clinical environment and to introduce them to the practice of Medicine, Surgery, Community Medicine and Child Health. It builds upon the biomedical foundations of these disciplines and the clinical skills developed in the first two years of the course. 

The emphasis throughout each term is on self-directed, experiential learning and deep involvement in the day-to-day care of their patients. Students will have clear requirements for attendance, patient clerking and unit involvement. Prior to commencing Year 3, students will be expected to be proficient in the basic skills of history taking and clinical examination. The prolonged attachments will allow them practise in the synthesis of information and the development of concise management plans for their patients. Elements of Population Health, Personal and Professional Development, Evidence Based Practice and Clinical Skills will be integrated into all parts of each term. 

Students will have a total of 40 weeks of attachments in either a single rural location or two terms of 39 weeks in order to allow them to build relationships with the medical, nursing and paramedical staff of the particular area that they are assigned to. In each term, students will not be exposed to all the subspecialties that are available in Canberra but all will be expected to have seen patients with common, representative clinical problems from all the specialties. Students will be expected to follow patients in a longitudinal fashion throughout their hospital stay and through the construct of the Integrated Community and Child Health Term. 

Throughout Year 3, Wednesday is designated for formal teaching sessions and students will not be expected to attend clinical activities of their assigned terms on this day. One session each Wednesday will be devoted to learning experiences relevant to that term but with all of that term's students involved. One session each Wednesday will be for a longitudinal program overarching the year and will include all Year 3 students.

The terms in Year 3 are designated as follows:

Elements of the vertical themes of Population Health, Personal and Professional Development, Medical Sciences and Clinical Skills are integral to each term and complemented by additional material from each theme in an overarching program through the year.

On completion of Integrated Child and Community Health students should:

On completion of Foundations of Medicine and Surgery students should:

• Understand the fundamental principles of Internal Medicine and Surgery
• Understand the principles of pre- and post-operative care.
• Understand the relevance of Biomedical Sciences, Population Health and Evidence Based Practice to a clinical environment.
• Be able to undertake a history and examination of adult medical and surgical patients with both differentiated and undifferentiated conditions.
• Be able to formulate a reasonable differential diagnosis on the basis of history and examination.
• Understand the range of common conditions seen in both hospital and community medical and surgical practice.
• Describe the epidemiology of common medical and surgical conditions and understand the population level implications.
• Understand the use of investigations in the refinement of the differential diagnosis
• Be able to formulate a management plan for common medical and surgical conditions such as ischemic heart disease, obstructive airway disease, biliary colic.
• Have knowledge of the magnitude and important risk factors for major cardiac, respiratory and renal diseases.
• Have a basic knowledge of the multifactorial and multilevel determinants of health and wellbeing including the role of culture, society and attitude as well as the influence of socio-economic, environmental, infectious, genetic, biological and other factors.

Additionally, at the end of Year 3 students should be able to:

• Appreciate the importance and use of data collections and information systems in population health.
• Understand the processes required to ensure high quality data collection and reporting from data collections.
• Develop skills necessary for conduct of a local clinical audit including development of a research question, design, analysis and interpretation of results.
• Be aware of the major data systems that run alongside treatment systems, including information relating to surveillance, policy, public health and health financing with emphasis on the role of the doctor in data collection and use of data.
• Have knowledge of the magnitude and risk factors of diseases encountered during the clinical term.
• Apply knowledge of multifactorial and multi-level determinants of health to individual patients and groups. This includes proximal lifestyle factors and more distal determinants of health.
• Apply skills in accessing and critically assessing the literature for clinical and population health practice.

The general expection in Year 3 is a minimum of 6 clinical sessions (4 hour sessions) per week in addition to the structured teaching commitments eg. all day Wednesday.  Sometimes attendance of 7-8 sessions a week may be required, in addition to formal teaching.  Clinical learning and teaching is different to your more sturctured experiences in Years 1 and 2.  The clinicians you are attached to expect you to be there when they are seeing patients - this may be at an 8 am teaching ward round, or it may be attendance with your rural GP when they are on call at the local hospital.

Rural rotations include 7-8 sessions per week in addition to the Wednesday teaching.  The rural placement is an immersion in rural practice and where the GPs have hospital and after hours commitments, students will be expected to do after hours work.  During Northern Territory placements, students are expected to be involved full-time.