Monash University

Program

This combined medical degree offers an integrated curriculum, taught in an interdisciplinary fashion around four broad themes and in a wide range of learning environments, both on-campus and in clinical settings.

1. Personal and professional development
2. Population, society, health and illness
3. Scientific basis of clinical practice
4. Clinical skills

You will have access to the largest healthcare provider network in Australia, which includes the Monash Medical Centre and The Alfred, Melbourne’s major casualty hospital.

The course develops through theme studies in personal and professional development; population, society, health and illness; scientific basis of clinical practice; and clinical skills, all of which come together in professional practice demonstrated in the clinical placement units.

Part A. Personal and professional development
Personal and professional development focuses on the doctor as an individual and concentrates on the personal attributes and qualities needed by medical students and, ultimately, medical practitioners. It covers elements of health enhancement, professional responsibilities, communication skills, information technology, medical informatics and computing skills, ethics and legal issues, and clinical effectiveness.

Part B. Population, society, health, and illness
Population, society, health and illness develops your abilities to deal with broader society and population issues. Students will consider the social, environmental and behavioural contexts of illness and the practice of medicine, including an emphasis on rural and remote Australia. Other elements of this theme will be built around health promotion, epidemiology, public health, community diversity, population and global health, and a range of other societal issues. The history and philosophy of the scientific approach to medicine will also be included, extending this to approaches to knowledge and information, and an understanding of evidence-based medicine.

Part C. Scientific basis of clinical practice
Scientific basis of clinical practice includes much of the human systems-based teaching in the course. The knowledge and concepts that underpin medicine, both in the basic medical sciences and in the clinical sciences, are included.

Part D. Clinical skills
This theme encompasses the whole range of clinical skills. This begins with clinical aspects of communication skills and introduction to practical clinical skills including handwashing, sharps disposal, and subcutaneous and intramuscular injecting. Early in the course, you’ll interact with health care professionals during medical contact visits, and you’ll be introduced to the medical interview, taking a family history, and ethical aspects of medical contact visits. Comprehensive history taking, systems based physical examinations and procedural clinical skills are further developed during later clinical placements.

Clinical Placements
An emphasis on clinical communication skills and early clinical contact visits to medical practices, community care facilities and hospitals is a feature of the Monash medical degree. You will spend significant time in rural areas as part of a health-care team.

The first 2 years are largely campus-based, although with some city and rural clinical placements. Interdisciplinary units introduce the basic medical and behavioural sciences of anatomy, biochemistry, genetics, immunology, microbiology, pathology, pharmacology, physiology, psychology and sociology. Years 3–5 are conducted in clinical settings, generally in hospitals and practices across metropolitan Melbourne and rural Victoria. You’ll spend around 40 hours per week working at a clinical site. Year 5 offers rotations through a number of clinical settings, such as aged care and emergency care, with the opportunity for a specialty selective placement.