Australian National University Medical School - Structure of The Medical School

Structure of The Medical School

The first enrolment was in 2004. The ANUMS program is a four year graduate medical degree, being thematic in concept and which uses problem based learning as the principal method of instruction particularly in the first two years.

The themes include:

• Medical Sciences- 45%
• Clinical Skills- 30%
• Population Health- 15%
• Professionalism and Leadership- 10%

These themes were selected as being important knowledge and professional domains that medical graduates will need in the 21st century. Doctors require competency in basic medical sciences such as anatomy and physiology as well as defined clinical skills, this includes communicating with patients and their relatives, being able to elicit a history, examine a patient and use the principles of evidence based practice. Population health grows in importance as the world’s population grows; doctors must appreciate there is perspective different from their individual patients and that great health gains are really only made at the population level. Finally, we recognise that doctors require an understanding of health law medical ethics and international human rights as well as an ability to reflect on their own performance and capacity.

Teaching is on the ANU campus, particularly in the first two years. Patient contact is from early in the course with much of the last two years taught in the health sector, both in the ACT and in surrounding NSW. In the ACT the principle teaching hospital is The Canberra Hospital, students will also go to Calvary Hospital, to facilities of ACT Community Care and selected general practices. In surrounding NSW we have established a Rural Clinical School. A select group of students will be invited to spend the third year of the course in a rural curriculum that will run parallel to the urban based curriculum.

The ANU Medical School has links with the ACT Department of Health and Community Care and the Southern Area Health Service of the NSW Health system. Canberra, the "bush capital", is very close to the small population centres of south-eastern NSW. The School takes advantage of the diversity of the surrounding area and provides rural experience from very early in the course in locations such as Yass, Queanbeyan, Bega, Batemans Bay, Goulburn and Cooma, all of which are within a few hour's travelling distance of Canberra, as well as Young. Students have the opportunity to spend one of their clinical years in a rural setting, learning medicine, surgery, obstetrics and gynaecology synchronously while their urban colleagues rotate through traditional blocs.