This course unit is longitudinal throughout the 3rd year of the curriculum.
As part of the PRR Digital4Health Portugal – UCP project, since the 2024/25 academic year, this course unit has integrated equipment and digital environments funded by the PRR — SAM 4G, Butterfly iQ+, the ScanLab™ module, and Body Interact — the components introduced and how they are used by students are described in the Course Contents and Teaching Methodologies sections of the Syllabus.
The portfolios are based on students’ experiences across a range of educational and other settings. These experiences and other elements, such as feedback, serve as the starting point for students’ learning.
Intended learning outcomes (knowledge, skills and competences to be developed by the students)
The overall goals in year 3 remain the same as the Portfolio Years 1 and 2, namely further developing the reflective practice skills and integrating the seven roles described by the CanMEDS Framework; medical expert, professional, communicator, collaborator, leader/manager, health advocate and scholar.
In this year the expectation is that learners will demonstrate more deeper reflective skills and reflective writing skills and will be able to describe in depth their performance and learning goals related to the various CanMED roles and their accompanying competencies.
In addition, an eighth role will be added, namely “person”, which relates to personal growth and self-care, finding balance between work and family and personal interests and rest. Importantly, roles that relate directly to patient care, now start coming to the fore as the students prepare themselves to start seeing patients.
As part of the reinforcement of training in clinical procedures and basic and advanced life support (2024/25) and the introduction of point-of-care ultrasound and digital simulation with virtual patients (2025/26), students also develop competences in structured physical examination and auscultation, in the acquisition and interpretation of point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) images, and in clinical reasoning, diagnosis and therapeutic decision-making through virtual-patient simulation.
Syllabus
In year 3, the sources for reflection for the will come from the various curricular units for that year. The CU Psychomedical Problems presents an important opportunity to reflect on holist care, including the role of the social, spiritual and religious domains. Here are major opportunities to make use of the humanities. Of great importance this year, is the introduction of the curricular unit Professional Behavior Domain.
This constitutes a major source for reflection. Palliative and end-of-life care provides excellent platforms for eportfolio reflections this year in the context of topics such as pharmacology, circulation and lungs (caring for patients with advanced and progressive disease), chronicity and the complexities of comorbidities and patient-centred decision-making in these contexts, as well as holistic care. Palliative care also provides opportunities to reflect on team work and concepts such as suffering, dignity and societal needs.
As part of the PRR Digital4Health Portugal – UCP project, the following contents and digital resources were introduced and reinforced in this CU: the reinforcement of systematic training in clinical procedures and in basic and advanced life support, including airway management, resuscitation, monitoring and response to complications, in a safe environment prior to contact with real patients, using the SAM 4G simulator (controlled via mobile application and Bluetooth, with a library of cardiac, pulmonary and bowel sounds); the introduction of point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) in the teaching of the physical examination, using the Butterfly iQ+ probe (connected to a smartphone/tablet) and the ScanLab™ educational module with artificial-intelligence-guided simulation; and the introduction of digital simulation of clinical cases with virtual patients who respond dynamically to students' decisions, through the Body Interact platform (Medicine Basic Licence), enabling training in clinical reasoning, diagnosis and therapeutic decision-making.
