Clinical Phase

In seminar format, topics in medical ethics that develop the analytical skills and reflective sensitivity required for responsive, responsible, and productive decision-making between patients and professional. Topics discussed include ethical decisions at both the beginning and the end of life, risk/benefit decision-making in medicine, confidentiality and privacy. Students also discuss a variety of professional practice issues, such as privilege and confidentiality in communicating with patients, political and legal issues, credentialing and licensure, professional liability, and the physician-PA team relationship.

This course aims to introduce practitioners to principles of evidence-based practice and policy, practice guidelines, and information utilization for practice modeling. Increasingly, Physician Assistants are presented with new information about recent findings from research and professional consensus statements regarding best practice guidelines. This information pertains to practice assessment, intervention, and the evaluation of outcomes. This course focuses on preparing students to engage in evidence-based practice, providing the skills needed to critically evaluate new information that is available from research findings and professional consensus statements. Furthermore, the course provides skills for integrating this new information into the student’s own, personalized approach to practice.

This formal course is designed to evaluate and test the student’s ability to adequately perform a history and physical examination, develop an assessment and management plan, and critically think through a case scenario. Each student is required to demonstrate his/her ability to perform at least two problem-oriented physical examinations during the course of the clinical year. The student is also required to take and pass a comprehensive written examination (summative evaluation) at the conclusion of the clinical phase to be eligible for graduation and/or to sit for the boards.

The course is designed to instruct students on general concepts of health care delivery and the characteristics and functions of some important delivery systems. Emphasis will be placed on decentralized, community-based and primary care systems, ambulatory care systems, as well as long term care systems. The student will be exposed to financial and ethical issues that challenge today’s system and ways to address it.

This course is designed as a “capstone” to the program. Students will work with a faculty advisor, to formulate a clinical question and perform a literature search on the topic. This will allow an opportunity to demonstrate analytical ability and comprehensive understanding of a subject. The research work will allow the student to conduct a literature review, explore and analyze a problem, and design a study to answer a clinical question.

In keeping with the Touro College mission to serve the larger community, students in the School of Health Sciences are required to complete an independent study that involves a minimum of twenty-five (25) hours of community service with individuals disadvantaged due to illness, disability, or other circumstance. The purpose of this requirement is to (1) provide students in the School of Health Sciences with an opportunity to learn from, and give back to, the larger community; (2) enhance awareness of how a disability or illness impacts the individual, family, friends, caregivers, and community. Through this experience, students may interact with people from different cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds, with people who have impairments leading to functional limitations in the physical, cognitive, and/or social-emotional domains, or with people who struggle with issues related to poverty, homelessness and hunger. The specifics of the experience and project undertaken are negotiated on an individual basis between the student and the department faculty advisor.

This elective course of 5 weeks' duration gives students the opportunity to analyze and synthesize medical information, reinforce their clinical skills and apply the concepts of medical decision-making and problem-solving to complex patient presentations.