(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Weill Cornell Medicine Qatar (WCM-Q) medical students, who are all in the third year of the medical curriculum, have attended the clinical orientation week which incorporates the annual Cornell Stars event to prepare them to start their full-time clinical courses.
In the latest phase of their training, they had to deal with the world's most interesting and unpredictable patients young children. This involves faculty and staff members at WCM-Q bringing in their own children so that the medical students can learn the best techniques for examining children in a clinical setting.
The event offers students experience of interacting and examining babies, toddlers and children up to the age of seven. The examinations are all held in WCM-Q's Clinical Skills and Simulation Lab, which features a number of realistic mock clinics. Dr Amal Khidir, associate professor of paediatrics, and organiser of the Cornell Stars programme, said the annual event is a valuable learning opportunity for the students, demonstrating that children and adults make for very different patients and encounters. For example, examining a child may involve encouragement from the physician, help from the parent, but also a willingness to be opportunistic and flexible on the part of the doctor.
Dr Khidir said: 'We are trying to give our students the chance to experience what it is genuinely like to engage a child and perform a basic physical examination of a child, but also to pass on hints and tips that may help with that examination. For example, we show the students how to keep the children calm, maybe let the children listen to their own hearts through the stethoscope, and generally build up a rapport with them. We want them to learn how to negotiate, communicate and be creative in engaging the children and their care-giver in a relaxed environment.
The examinations were all overseen by experienced doctors from WCM-Q, Hamad Medical Corporation and Sidra Medicine, who passed on their years of experience in paediatrics.
Dr Khidir said that without the invaluable support of Dr Stella Major, Dr Madeeha Kamal, Dr Mehdi Adeli, Dr Sharda Udassi, Dr Manasik Hassan, Dr Suzan Gamel, Dr Ahmed Eltayeb, Dr Mohamed Elkalaf, and Dr Marva Yahya, the Cornell Stars event would not be as successful as it is. She also thanked the members of faculty and staff who brought their children in for the event, and, of course, she thanked the children themselves.
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