Medical Student Emergency Medicine Placement
Eight sessions linking supervised clinical learning, common presentations and examination practice.
For: Medical students on an emergency department placement.
Use the order below as a starting point. Select, reorder or repeat sessions to match the group’s experience and your department’s priorities. Send each learner-preparation link before the session and check the lesson’s review status and local guidance.
8 sessions in the suggested sequence. The timings below come from each lesson; paired practice may need additional time.
Starting your emergency medicine placement
Find your role in the team, agree supervision and plan what to learn from the placement.
Assessing and treating acute pain
Discuss pain assessment and explain an initial plan to your supervisor.
Assessing chest pain
Present a focused chest-pain assessment and discuss the important possibilities.
Assessing acute breathlessness
Connect assessment of breathlessness with paired respiratory examination practice.
Assessing suspected sepsis
Discuss recognition of an unwell patient and when to call for help.
Assessing a blackout or unexplained fall
Work through a blackout history and practise the cardiovascular examination.
Assessing acute back pain
Discuss back-pain cases, then practise the lower-limb neurological examination.
Diagnostic testing: probability and clinical decisions
Use a numerical example to explain what a test result adds to an assessment.
Choose one change to try after each session. At the next meeting, discuss what happened and what you would do differently.
Read the educator’s guide for preparation, small-group discussion and feedback.