Teaching
The Department of Medicine is highly active not only in science, but also in teaching, which can be divided to the following sectors: undergraduate medical education, postgraduate training in medicine, and scientific training in medicine.
Undergraduate medical education in medicine is provided in the beginning and towards the end of clinical studies. The magnitude of training in medicine is altogether 30 ECTS which is equal to 440 hours active training. Furthermore, each medical student has the opportunity to work 40 hours in the first aid unit of Turku University Central Hospital. In addition to the above, versatile optional training in medicine is provided to everyone interested in it. The Department of Medicine has also recently adopted a new method in teaching medicine. This method is applied problem based learning, i.e., each student is personally responsible for treating and taking care of individual patients during their stay in a ward. After completion of undergraduate training in medicine each student should be able to take a medical history and to complete a clinical examination adequately in order to make an appropriate case report and a plan for clinical work-up. The student should also know, when a general practioner has to refer the patient for further examinations and/or when hospital treatment is required.
The goal of postgraduate training in the Department of Medicine is to educate top-class specialists in all fields of medicine: cardiology, endocrinology, gastroenterology, hematology, infectious diseases, nephrology and rheumatology. The length of the training is altogether 6 years, of which 3 years have to be performed at the university hospital and/or in a hospital named separately. All the training takes place under the supervision of highly experienced teachers. Furthermore, everybody in the raining program will have a tutor during his/her specialization period. At the moment, there are 28 training positions for medical doctors in the Department of Medicine at the University of Turku.
Besides providing specialist training the Department of Medicine encourages medical students and young doctors to perform scientific work. The environment for scienctific work in the Department of Medicine is excellent due to the fact that its personnel has had a long and successful career in science and furthermore, there is no shortage of topics to be studied in the field of medicine.