Entry requirements

Required previous knowledge is decided by the Committee for Undergraduate Medical Education.

Aims

The aims of the basic course in clinical chemistry for MD students are:

to teach the biochemical processes underlying disease in order to improve the understanding of diagnostic methods in clinical chemistry.

to give an overview of clinical chemical and haematological laboratory investigations.

to teach how to interpret the results of clinical chemical laboratory investigations.

to familiarise the student with practical and theoretical aspects of routine clinical chemical methods.

to give an overview of current research and development in clinical chemistry.

Content

The following issues will be dealt with: Blood sampling and sample handling. Analytical quality. Presentation of analytical results, reference ranges and laboratory organisation. Interpretation of laboratory data. Serum protein markers. Methods for investigating coagulation disorders. Plasma protein disturbances. Clinical chemical monitoring of disturbances in individual organ systems. Bedside clinical chemistry. During the seminars a number of cases will be discussed to illustrate the importance of clinical chemical investigations.

The laboratory experiments include basic clinical chemical and haematological routine methods.

Instruction

The course in basic clinical chemistry comprises 3 weeks of full-time studies, 2 weeks during the second half of the 3rd year and 1 week studies in groups of 6-9 students during the first half of the 4th year of medical school. The course consists of lectures, seminars with case discussions and laboratory experiments.

Assessment

A written test is given at the end of the 2 weeks of full-time studies and at the end of Term 7 a written examination integrated with Internal Medicine is given.