CLINICAL MEDICINE:A CLERKING COMPANION

Students starting on the wards are often bewildered at their role and unable to make the most of the learning opportunities presented to them. The hardest thing is to adapt to a new way of learning, where books and lectures take a back seat and the subjects for study are the patients whose beds line the wards. Rather than being asked to go to the library and write an essay on the physiology of the kidneys, you are told to go and clerk the patient in bed 3 with acute renal failure. The problem lies in knowing where on earth to begin.

Clinical Medicine: A Clerking Companion is written for inexperienced clinical students, and helps them to use their patients to learn medicine. It aims to transform students who know a bit about the medical sciences into young doctors who can draw knowledge and experience together to diagnose and treat real patients.

At heart, it is a workbook that provides students with a framework for approaching patients with a range of common conditions. It is a 'friend over the shoulder' - guiding students through interviewing and examining a patient, and then evaluating the patient's current condition and their future management. A list of questions then helps students explore the topic in more detail - sending them back to their textbooks to read about what they have seen and understand the science underlying it.

It is also a self-directed learning portfolio, helping students to assess their progress by seeing where they are lacking clinical exposure, and by recording key cases they have seen to function as a revision aid.