Alfaisal University College of Medicine (AU) in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has adopted a spiral curriculum whereby clinical skills courses are offered in integration with system blocks. They run in continuum over semesters 2-6, offering five semester-long parallel courses to pre clerkship students (years 1-3) as follows:

1. CSK 115-------Clinical Skill I offered in ins semester II
2. CSK 234 -------Clinical Skill II offered in semester III
3. CSK 244 -------- Clinical Skill IV offered in semester IV
4. CSK 356 ---------- Clinical Skill V offered in semester V
5. CSK 365 ----------- Clinical Skill VI offered in semester VI

Education Stratergies

The Department of Clinical Skills uses modern educational strategies in accordance with national and international accredited quality criteria including small group clinical sessions, bed side teaching in the hospital, pre-briefing, debriefing, scenario-based simulation sessions, computer simulations, video recordings and video recorded sessions. Sessions are interactive and hands-on with students divided into small groups of 10-12 students. Students are divided into small groups of 10-12 students. Two facilitators are assigned to each session to facilitate learning and practice with students. For uniform and standardized training, students are provided with checklists, handouts, and videos before each session. Checklists are prepared by the clinical skills team and reviewed by clinicians at King Faisal Specialist Hospital (KFSH.) The department also records its own videos for demonstration of skills to provide to students as prebriefing and review resources. Students are expected to come to each session prepared to practice.

The first session for each course (except PRO 115 & PRO 234 where there are no hospital visits) is conducted at the Department of Clinical Sills at Alfaisal University (AU) and followed by a bedside teaching and training session at King Faisal Specialist Hospital (KFSH). History-taking, physical examination on standardized patients (SPs), iinterpretation, and procedural skills sessions are introduced during sessions at AU followed by real patient interaction with patients at KFSH. Other educational strategies include pre-briefing and debriefing. Debriefing is a learning conversation that takes place after an experiential learning activity. In this conversation, learners discuss the simulated activity they participated in with the goal of uncovering their knowledge gaps, learning new skills, and improving individual and team communication and judgement. Debriefing optimally takes place immediately following a simulation experience. The debriefing conversation, facilitated by an educator, encourages learners to discuss and share what they think went well, what didn’t go so well, and what could be done better next time to improve their skills, teamwork, and communication. Debriefing is known to be the heart of learning in simulation, providing an opportunity for learners to reflect on their experience so they may improve their future behaviour and practice. It plays an extremely important role in healthcare education and in the improvement of patient care and prevention of errors. The assessment of courses includes continuous and summative evaluation methods which include observed performance evaluation (OPE), objective structured clinical examination (OSCE), and quizzes.