STUDENT WORKLOAD POLICY - PRECLINICAL
Key Words
Contact hours; preclinical; workload
LCME Standard
8.8 Monitoring Student Workload
The medical school faculty committee responsible for the medical curriculum and the program’s
administration and leadership ensure the development and implementation of effective policies and
procedures regarding the amount of time medical students spend in required activities, including the
total number of hours medical students are required to spend in clinical and educational activities
during clerkships.
Purpose
The aim of the Geisel School of Medicine is to create an optimum environment that facilitates medical
student learning. The school strives to promote a balance between scheduled classroom learning in a
variety of formats, independent learning, and time for attention to personal health and well-being
during the preclinical curriculum.
This policy was written to establish the amount of time medical students spend in required activities,
including the total number of contact hours medical students are required to spend and ensure that
curriculum contact hours are counted in a consistent manner across courses and across years in the
preclinical phase of the school’s educational program.
Guideline
SCOPE & APPLICABILITY
Faculty and staff members responsible for counting contact hours.
DEFINITIONS
Contact Hour: A unit of measure that represents one hour of scheduled instruction or formal
assessment given to students. This includes any eLearning activity that is used in place of the
scheduled in-class instruction. This unit of measure does not include activities that are assigned to
students in preparation for a class.
Student Workload Policy - PreClinical
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Preclinical: Refers to the period of medical education where teaching and learning are devoted to
the basic sciences and the basics of history taking and physical exam skills. This period precedes the
clinical rotations when students begin their clinical studies in clerkships, electives, and subinternships.
POLICY STATEMENT
1. The required contact time should not exceed 25 hours per week, averaged over the entire term,
for each course in Years 1 and 2.
2. In no circumstances should contact time, in any week, exceed 28 hours.
PROCEDURE
Scheduled learning experiences and formal assessment experiences are considered to be contact
hours. Listed in alphabetical order, those experiences are as follows:
Learning experiences
 Clinical experiences (On Doctoring’s direct patient contact experiences)
 E-learning modules
 IPE sessions
 Labs
 Large group (TBL, case discussions, CPC, session with patient interview, panel discussions,
ARS, flipped classrooms)
 Lectures
 PBL
 Review sessions (required)
 Small group (any session with a small group of students to discuss a specific issue, topic or
problem, such as case conferences, seminars, etc.)
Assessment Experiences
 Exams (MCQ, quizzes, essays, NBME, etc.)
 OSCEs
The following activities listed in alphabetical order are not considered to be contact hours:
Not to be counted
 BLS training
 Board review sessions
 Community service orientation and time to participate
 E-learning modules used for pre-work, preparatory quizzes, etc.
 Enrichment elective time in Year 1 and 2
 Introduction to Year 1and Year 2 sessions, such as introduction to the library, PBL, etc.
 NBME informational sessions and mock exam
Student Workload Policy - PreClinical
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Orientation (OSHA training, criminal background checks, etc.)
Fingerprinting for the VA
Flu shots
IV/Phlebotomy training
PPD testing
Reading day
Review sessions (optional)
RESPONSIBILITY
Office of Medical Education
BACKGROUND
Click here to view the Background & Policy Origin
Contact Information
Office of Medical Education
Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth
Hinman Box 7005
Remsen Building, Room 306
Hanover, NH 03755
(603) 650-6530
Related Information
University Documents:
None.
Other Documents:
None.
Related Links:
None.
Policy Administration
Application:
Faculty and staff
Date Created:
Responsible Office:
Office of Medical Education
Date Reviewed:
Written By:
?? The Medical Education
Committee
The Medical Education Committee
Date Revised:
Authorized By:
Policy Number:
January 21, 2014
??