INTRODUCTION

These clinical problems translate the objectives and competencies of the curriculum into real life patient encounters that students can expect in a general pediatric clerkship. The brief clinical vignettes represent typical presenting complaints or questions encountered in pediatric practice and parallel the content areas of the pediatric curriculum. The vignettes have been kept brief to serve as "triggers", giving only enough detail to direct further investigation or discussion. The clinical problems are designed to stimulate discussion of appropriate differential diagnoses, initial evaluation and management, and anticipatory guidance and Counciling. Vignettes have been grouped into the same chapters as the National Core Curriculum although some overlap exists. For example, the topic of “prevention” is applicable to several of the chapters not just the Prevention chapter.

This clinical problem set can be used in a variety of ways. A clerkship director may use only a few of these problems or the entire set. Faculty can use them to stimulate group discussion about specific curricular objectives. Selected problems or the entire set can be used when developing a program of student self-directed learning. Importantly, the problems are not designed to provide an exhaustive overview of the pediatric clerkship experience but to supplement the student's clinical experience. The current format of clinical problems has not been developed for use in a final clerkship evaluation. In order to use these clinical problems for examination purposes the clerkship director will need to expand the clinical scenario, define the questions further and develop a key of acceptable answers for different grading levels.

COMSEP Curriculum Task Force members met in Nashville, TN during the 2002 annual meeting to review, revise, and update the 1995 clinical problem set. This version represents the first step in the revision process. While task force members strove to ensure style consistency and careful linkage to National Core Curriculum objectives, errors or omissions are likely. The Curriculum Task Force envisions that the clinical problem supplement as a “living document,” one that is subject to constant revision and review as errors are corrected, new issues arise, or new data accumulate. The Curriculum Task Force will continuously monitor this document and post revised editions yearly.