Longitudinal Themes
Longitudinal Themes is a longitudinal course that encompasses all aspects of the development of a physician including but not limited to professionalism, evidence-based medicine, ethics, health equity, patient safety, service learning & patient advocacy, health professions collaboration, patient immersion experiences, communication skills and physical examination skill development.
The Longitudinal Themes curriculum is scaffolded across the four years of the curriculum and is based on the CanMEDS framework. Each theme falls under one or more of the CanMEDS roles:
- Medical Expert: integrated systems block content; Longitudinal Clinical Experience (LCE); evidence-based medicine (EBM); clinical skills (communication and physical exam
- Collaborator: interprofessional education; Patient Immersion Experience (PIE); social accountability (social determinants of health); ethics; Physician Discussion Group (PDG)
- Scholar: evidence-based medicine (EBM)
- Communicator: interprofessional education; clinical skills (communication); Patient Immersion Experience (PIE); Longitudinal Clinical Experience (LCE); ethics; Physician Discussion Group (PDG)
- Health Advocate: service learning (SiS; SJ-COSS); social accountability (social determinants of health); Patient Immersion Experience (PIE); ethics; Physician Discussion Group (PDG)
- Professional: ethics; Physician Discussion Group (PDG)
The Longitudinal Themes include:
- Clinical skills - communication (history taking) & physical exam
- LCE – longitudinal clinical experience (students spend half-day clinics in preclerkship with a family physician)
- SIS – students in service (students work with community agencies as part of a service learning)
- SJ-COSS – Social Justice, Communities of Service/Scholarship
- IPE – interprofessional education
- PIE – patient immersion experience (students work with patient mentors who teach about the illness experience)
- PDG – physician discussion group (4 year curriculum that helps students integrate the learning from all the other longitudinal themes to help form the physician identity)
- Other themes are integrated and assessed through system blocks – social accountability which includes Black and Indigenous health, ethics, EBM (evidence-based medicine), opioid curriculum, health systems/patient safety