Departmental Focus:
Practical medicine focuses, in its preclinical courses, mainly on social communication, practised and presented in seminars and video-seminars. It also focuses on practical communication skills and communication with handicapped people. Seeing chronically ill patients with their families is an essential part of this course. The main aim of the study is to understand the patient and his/her psychosocial background, in a pre-clinical phase and later in a clinical setting.
Working for a week in consultation rooms and calling on out patients, provides students with the means for working independently, and obtaining practical experience. Students have a chance to compare their theoretical knowledge with the demands of practice in primary care.
History
General practice teaching at Second Faculty of Medicine, Charles University started by eligible one week module for the 5th grade students in 1993. This was inspired by examples in other Universities (London, Leicester, Den Haag and Birmingham). In 1996 the Department of General Practice continued teaching activities by establishing obligatory courses for the Ist and IInd grade students. Further enlargement of the GP education started in 2001 by bringing mandatory module to the 5th grade.
