Preceptor Resources

Undergraduate Medical Education (UME) welcomes individuals who are interested in becoming teachers in our program.  If you would like to take on a teaching role in UME (or if you’re already a teacher and would like to know more about our program) please contact umehelpdesk@ucalgary.ca to set up an appointment to meet with Assistant Dean, Pre-Clerkship.

Located below are some important links and general information to be consider teaching for the Cumming School of Medicine's Undergraduate Medical Education program. 

Faculty Appointment Requirements

LCME Accreditation Standard

9.2 Faculty Appointments

A medical school ensures that supervision of medical students is provided throughout required clinical learning experiences by members of the medical school’s faculty. 

Please contact your Department Head to begin the process of obtaining a Faculty Appointment. 

Presentation Disclosure, Copyright  and  Accreditation Slide Requirements

All presentations given during lectures are required to contain three additional information slides.  Faculty disclosure regarding commercial interests, copyright acknowledgements and topic descriptions for Accreditation Standard ED-10 Standard 7: Curricular Content. These slides will be forwarded to your by your Program Coordinator prior to your lecture or click here to download. 

Thanks for your interest in taking on a role in medical education. We have developed a series of podcasts that are intended to assist you in beginning and continuing your role. The podcasts are organized into two groups. The first collection is intended for individuals who are beginning a role as a UME teacher in the Cumming School of Medicine. This collection offers an introduction to several topics that will help you to understand how our curriculum is organized and some of the philosophies that guide our teaching. Even experienced teachers may learn something from these recordings!

The second collection is intended for people who are taking on a leadership role within our courses and committees. These individuals will also want to review the podcasts in the first collection and then delve into those in collection two. The podcasts in collection two outline some of the expectations for the role of a course leader and offers guidance in situations that may require course leader involvement.

I hope you enjoy the podcasts; any questions can be directed to me at the email address below.

Enjoy your teaching! 
KB

Kevin Busche MD BSc FRCPC 
Assistant Professor 
Department of Clinical Neurosciences

Assistant Dean, Preclerkship 
Undergraduate Medical Education 
Cumming School of Medicine 
University of Calgary

UME: 403 210 3841 | RGH: 403 943 3214 
kdbusche@ucalgary.ca

The Undergraduate Medical Curriculum at the University of Calgary

Introduction

When the University of Calgary Medical School was founded in 1970, the ‘Systems-Based’ curricular model was adopted, and produced highly qualified physicians over its 30 years of existence. Building on the strengths of this curricular model, the University of Calgary Medical School modified its curriculum in the mid 1990s to what is called a ‘Clinical Presentation’ curriculum. This innovative model, which has now been adopted by over 15 other medical schools worldwide, aims to organize teaching around the 120+/- 5 ways a patient can present to a physician. These Clinical Presentations can take the form of historical points (e.g. chest pain), physical examination signs (e.g. hypertension), or laboratory abnormalities (e.g. elevated serum lipids). This structure thus takes the over 3200 diagnostic entities known in medicine, and organizes them within the framework of the finite (120+/-5) ways patients present to their physicians.

When the Clinical Presentation curriculum was adopted, University of Calgary faculty members were asked to develop their course objectives in a logical and structured fashion. What spontaneously emanated from the minds of these skilled teachers were classification systems, unique to each Clinical Presentation, that have subsequently been called ‘schemes’. These schemes provide scaffolding onto which basic and clinical sciences knowledge can be both structured and integrated, while also aiding in clinical problem solving. This use of schemes, or clinical problem-solving pathways, has been widely supported in medical education and cognitive psychology literature, including studies originating at the University of Calgary.  The clinical presentation curriculum teaches the basic science and clinical knowledge pertinent to each clinical presentation and provides an approach to the solution of the clinical problems. The schemes for all 120 Clinical Presentations have now been compiled into one book, the University of Calgary “Black Book”, which will be given to all students upon entering medical school. Each class will be expected to continue the process of modifying and improving the new editions of this compilation. 

This is the general framework of the clinical presentations for each of our Pre-clerkship “systems” courses. A complete list of all the clinical presentations can be found on the Medical Council of Canada site, on the Objectives for Qualifying Examination page. Click here to be directed to the MCC site . 

Colleagues

 You may or not be aware of the emphasis that the University of Calgary is now placing on Copyright Compliance. The Provost’s Office has designated this issue as one of critical importance, following a recent legal action brought by a publisher against York University for unauthorized use of copyright protected materials.

 The Undergraduate Medical Education Office is working with course leaders and teachers to move towards copyright compliance. The most immediate issue for most teachers is understanding what needs to be done to ensure that lecture and small group presentations are compliant.

 I would ask you to ensure that your presentations in lectures or small groups adhere to the following guidelines for copyright compliance:

In class

You can project a copy, image/figure/chart or video taken from an outside source (e.g. downloaded).

Proper citations are advised.*

Posting Lecture Slides to OSLER or Podcasts

1. Your lecture presentations: you may include short excerpts of a work with proper credit (eg. charts, tables, figures, images). The Copyright Office (copyright@ucalgary.ca) can assist you with ensuring your use is covered by fair dealing (‘fair dealing’ is an exception to the Copyright Act that allows for the use of material for purposes that include research, private study or education).
2. PDFs of articles, book chapters, etc.: please check with the copyright office
3. Links to articles, book chapters, etc. can be posted. If using materials from the Internet please ensure they are legally posted.

For Exams:

You can project images, post scanned material and handout photocopied material. Proper citations are advised.*

 *Ideally citations are included with the material, (e.g. below the image you have included) however a list of citations may also be included at the end of your presentation. If you do not know the source of an image please cite it Source Unknown.

Cartoons that are used in lecture presentations are a unique challenge; cartoonists and cartoon syndicates are notoriously litigious. Unless it is absolutely essential for learning, please do not include cartoons in your presentations.

Course material of any type for the UME program must only be posted on our password-protected curriculum repository (OSLER) not on other websites or dropbox sites.

If you would like the Copyright Office to review a presentation to ensure compliance, please send your presentation to copyright@ucalgary.ca. They can confirm if there are any issues for you to be aware of.

The UME will be doing spot checks on presentations uploaded to OSLER to ensure Copyright control of posted material to analyze our compliance.

Thank you for your attention to this; it is vitally important that we all move towards achieving copyright compliance.

Sincerely,

Kevin Busche BSc, MD, FRCPC Clinical Associate Professor
Department of Clinical Neurosciences
Assistant Dean, Preclerkship
Undergraduate Medical Education

Basic Copyright Information

• Copyright automatically applies to original works such as books, articles, videos, music, paintings, photographs, digital works and performances of these works
• Text, images, video and music are usually copyright material whether published or found on the Internet
• For 50 years after the death of the creator, copyright protects works from being copied, performed or distributed without the permission of the copyright holder
• After that period has passed, the work is then in the public domain and may be freely used
• Copyright does not protect facts and ideas
• Royalty free web sites are a good way to avoid copyright issues
• http://library.ucalgary.ca/copyright/using-material-class
• Electronic materials available through the library are under licenses which dictate how the materials can be used (i.e. shared, printed, copied, etc.)
• Whenever you use someone else’s work you must cite according to the conventions or style guide of your discipline.

Resources

• UME Presentation Slides (Disclosure, Copyright &Accreditation)
• Fair Dealing Checklist - http://library.ucalgary.ca/copyright/faq#chart
• University of Calgary Copyright 
• Webpage  - http://library.ucalgary.ca/copyright 
• Disclosure Form
• Copyright Brouchure

The university is not liable for any infringing copies made or communicated by students including such copies made or communicated using copiers or scanners made available by the university, or for students/faulty who post infringing materials on the learning management system. Students/faulty who copy or communicate copyright-protected works should either obtain the permission of the copyright owner or be satisfied that the copying or communicating of the works falls within one of the exemptions in the Copyright Act.

For more information, please contact the Copyright Office (copyright@ucalgary.ca) or click here for further information 

Below are some helpful links to help with the development of Lecture Presentations

A copy of our Disclosure, Copyright and Accreditation topic slides are available here

Please read/follow the copyright notations when using this material.