Medical Education with a Difference

Abstract This paper discusses the new five‐year undergraduate medical course at the University of Newcastle in Australia. Extensive examples are included to illustrate the analytical approach which has led from the specification of programme objectives to the design of a course with complete integration of the basic and clinical sciences from the beginning to the end of the course. Lectures are replaced by individual and small group learning centred around a carefully designed sequence of medical problems. Projects in the community are designed to lead to the attainment of specified competences in relation to problems of groups in the population. In addition, educational experiences in interviewing, physical examination, special investigation and therapeutic intervention techniques, as well as competence in design‐measurement‐analysis‐reporting in medical practice and research are integrated with problem‐based learning. Students see patients in hospitals and in the community from the beginning of the cour...