Obejectives of Medical Education-First Day in General Surgery Ward

Welcome to General Surgery!

Today we will learn some basics.

Being a medical student one should know about the Objectives of Medical Education. Only if you know those objectives we will be able to achieve them!

There are Three main objectives of Medical Education. These are Knowledge (Medical), Skills (Clinical) and Attitude (towards the patients).

Of these three objectives attitude towards the patients is considered as the most important. Because unlike other branches of science, Medicine deals with human beings with emotions just like you and me; that too human beings in pain most of the times.

Hence the most important objective is to develop the correct attitude towards the other human beings.

In short, the three objectives of Medical Education can be abbreviated as ASK(Attitude, Skill and Knowledge, in that order).

The clinical approach to a patient in General Medicine is that we assess the patient by examining in a system wise manner. For example, Cardiovascular system, Respiratory System etc.  In General Surgery is the usual approach is to start analysing the patient in an organ wise or anatomical region wise manner.

Hence only if you know all the abnormal conditions of a particular organ ( for example Thyroid Gland) or particular region ( for example Parotid Region), we will be able to elicit a good clinical history and will be able to arrive at a Clinical Diagnosis.

By the way how do we arrive at a Clinical Diagnosis? This by three means-

1)      By eliciting a good Clinical History

2)      By performing a thorough  Clinical Examination of the patient

3)      By doing relevant Clinical Investigations.

Hence these three means  are known as the Pillars of Diagnosis.