Year 3: Independent Research and Scholarship

In their third year, students expand their curiosity in scientific endeavors, through attachments to research labs, and face the challenges in continuity of care over time through the Family Medicine Clerkship. Additionally, the non-credit Deciphering the Medical Literature course aims to help the 3rd year medical students achieve the quantitative competencies deemed essential for today’s physicians and complement their research progress.

Research

Students spend 10 to 11 months in a scholarly pursuit during the third year, after which they are expected to submit a thesis. Consistent with Duke's philosophy, attention is given to each student's individual career pathway. Faculty advisors and/or Research College Masters help each student design a study program that best meets their individual goals, whether it's identifying and cloning new genes at the laboratory bench, formulating public health policy, beginning studies toward a second degree, or studying specific patient populations.

Advisors/ Research College Masters also refer students to the appropriate faculty mentors, who will encourage their professional and scientific development over the course of their third-year project. Approved research mentors have been identified across Singapore, including mentors from Duke-NUS, National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Health Services and other research institutes.

Every effort is made to put students in the environment that best suits their needs. This includes opportunities for Duke-NUS students to study at Duke and for Duke students to study at Duke-NUS.

Students who elect to pursue the MD/PhD program devote extended time to independent study and research and gain greater research experience through this course of study.

Family Medicine Clerkship

The clerkship introduces the discipline of family medicine to the students and equips them with the basic competencies that will stand them in good stead should they choose to enter family medicine residency program in the future. The student will gain skills and knowledge in the domain of family medicine that will be applicable to other disciplines and contribute to their overall professional development. These include managing illness and doctor-patient relationship over time, preventing illness and promoting health, dealing with undifferentiated medical conditions, managing multiple co-morbidities, integrating care across disciplines and care setting, optimizing use of limited health care resources and sharing decision making with patients within the context of their family and culture. The clerkship has 3 components: the Knowledge Foundation Module teaches the knowledge base of the disciplines of family medicine, the Continuity Clinic Module provides clinical experience in the practice of family medicine whilst the Patient-Centered Care Module offers an appreciation of the illness experience from the perspective of the patient and their care givers. Family Medicine is assessed by Continuous Assessment and Mid-Module and End-of-Module Assessments.

Deciphering Medical Literature

This longitudinal course consisting of online self-assessments and conducted clinical research article sessions is designed to provide fundamental introduction and intuitive explanation of statistical and epidemiological concepts and vocabulary. A broad range of topics that are used frequently in biomedical publications, including hypothesis testing and confidence intervals, effect size, regression, survival analysis, multiple comparisons, sensitivity, specificity, and ROC’s, are introduced. The students also learn the principles of evidence-based medicine that will allow them to develop and apply methods of clinical observation in order to form meaningful conclusions.

Contact email for Year 3: teamlead@duke-nus.edu.sg