Introduction to Health Sciences
Code: 106686 ECTS Credits: 5| Degree | Type | Year |
|---|---|---|
| 2502442 Medicine | FB | 1 |
Contact
- Name:
- Jorge Molero Mesa
- Email:
- jorge.molero@uab.cat
Teachers
- Jaume Valentines Álvarez
- Anna Macaya Andres
Teaching groups languages
You can view this information at the end of this document.
Prerequisites
None
Objectives and Contextualisation
The main objective of the subject is to introduce the first year students to the knowledge and use of the basic tools of knowledge and medical practice, in order to facilitate subsequent learning and socialization in the professional field. It is, therefore, a propaedeutic subject that helps students acquire skills and abilities that will be useful in achieving the specific learning outcomes of the other subjects of the medical degree.
In the first thematic block the student must know the basic structure of the current medical vocabulary and the problems of oral and written communication in the field of medical sciences and must acquire the ability to understand the dynamics of information in medicine, the most important types of documents and the way of selectively retrieve certain information. This block is complemented by two practical sessions where students must complete the skills and abilities included in this section.
In the following blocks, the students will examine several basic problems of the health sciences from a historical perspective. In this sense, and in the face of the dispersion of specialized contents that students will find during their career, this part of the subject offers an integrated vision of medicine in which human beings are considered as a multidimensional entity where the interrelation of factors of all kinds (biological, psychological and social) condition and modify both the states of health and illness and their manifestations. These factors will be studied historically and from different perspectives (social class, gender, race), in order to determine their influence on the states of health and disease of the populations throughout history.
In the theoretical classes as well as in the practices and seminars, the student will have to carry out a series of activities that will familiarize him/her with the use of the various conceptual, methodological and instrumental tools necessary to develop an autonomous vision, and at the same time critical and rigorous, of the role ofmedicine in the system of health and social assistance.
Due to its characteristics, this subject is programmed in the first semester of the first year and its objectives and contents are complemented with those of the "Clinical Care Practice I" and "Integrated Learning in Medicine I" subjects, especially, Module 1 of the latter ("Introduction to Research").
Competences
- Communicate clearly, orally and in writing, with other professionals and the media.
- Critically assess and use clinical and biomedical information sources to obtain, organise, interpret and present information on science and health.
- Demonstrate basic research skills.
- Demonstrate knowledge of the historical principles underlying health, illness and the medical profession.
- Demonstrate knowledge of the national and international health organisations and the factors and circumstances affecting other healthcare systems.
- Demonstrate understanding of the importance and the limitations of scientific thought to the study, prevention and management of diseases.
- Demonstrate, in professional activity, a perspective that is critical, creative and research-oriented.
- Formulate hypotheses and compile and critically assess information for problem-solving, using the scientific method.
- Maintain and sharpen one's professional competence, in particular by independently learning new material and techniques and by focusing on quality.
- Organise and plan time and workload in professional activity.
- Recognise the basic elements of the medical profession as the result of an evolving, scientific, social and cultural process, including ethical principles, legal responsibilities and patient-oriented professional practice.
- Use information and communication technologies in professional practice.
Learning Outcomes
- Communicate clearly, orally and in writing, with other professionals and the media.
- Define the factors determining healthcare transition in today's world.
- Demonstrate a diachronic vision of healthcare institutions and the healthcare strategies implemented.
- Demonstrate basic research skills.
- Demonstrate, in professional activity, a perspective that is critical, creative and research-oriented.
- Describe the dynamics of information in the health sciences through information retrieval systems.
- Describe the historical background of the healthcare professions from the perspective of medical pluralism.
- Describe the historical factors determining the process of globalisation of health problems and international strategies on health.
- Detail the historical factors determining the shape of the various national health systems.
- Evaluate the consequences for patients of the diversity in healthcare practice and professions.
- Explain the principles of telemedicine.
- Explain the role of the healthcare professional as a critical and empathetic agent of social change, working for the health of the community.
- Formulate hypotheses and compile and critically assess information for problem-solving, using the scientific method.
- Identify changes and continuities in the forms and contents of the medicalisation process.
- Identify the origins and the institutionalisation of scientific activity, and the epistemological bases of scientific thought in the health sciences.
- Identify the processes of professionalisation in the field of the health sciences and the tendency towards specialisation.
- Identify the various medical systems, including alternative medicine, and identify their founding principles.
- Maintain and sharpen one's professional competence, in particular by independently learning new material and techniques and by focusing on quality.
- Make correct use of databases and works of reference (bibliographies, encyclopedias, and dictionaries) in the health sciences.
- Organise and plan time and workload in professional activity.
- Recognise and distinguish the different medical traditions that make up the current health panorama.
- Recognise health and illness as socially determined constructions that change over time.
- Recognise the scope and the limitations of scientific thought in the health sciences.
- Understand medical science as knowledge in construction, subject to constant change, posing new challenges and opportunities.
- Use information and communication technologies in professional practice.
Content
Origins, transmission and evolution of medical language. Information systems in health sciences. Historic bases of the scientific method in the field of health. The origins of the disease. Medical systems. History of medical knowledge and healthcare practices. Concepts of health and illness. The social history of diseases. The models of medical assistance. From individual hygiene to social medicine. The emergence of modern hospital and primary health care. The teaching of health sciences. The health professions.
DISTRIBUTION BLOCKS
A. LANGUAGE, DOCUMENTATION AND METHOD OF MEDICINE
B. ILLNESS, CULTURE AND POPULATION
C. THE MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS APPLICATION TO THE WESTERN
D. THE DISEASE AND THE PROCESS OF MEDICALIZATION
E. ANALYSIS OF MEDICAL TERMS
F. ACCESS TO MEDICAL DOCUMENTS
G. MATERIAL CULTURE OF MEDICINE
Activities and Methodology
| Title | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type: Directed | |||
| LABORATORY PRACTICES | 6 | 0.24 | 1, 5, 11, 18, 20, 10 |
| SPECIALIZED SEMINARS | 6 | 0.24 | 1, 2, 4, 3, 5, 24, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 22, 21, 23, 25 |
| THEORY | 30 | 1.2 | 2, 3, 8, 7, 6, 9, 24, 14, 15, 16, 17, 22, 21, 23, 19 |
| Type: Supervised | |||
| ORAL PRESENTATION / EXPOSITION OF WRITTEN WORKS | 6 | 0.24 | 2, 3, 8, 9, 24, 14, 15, 16, 17, 22, 21, 23 |
| Type: Autonomous | |||
| COMPREHENSIVE READING OF ARTICLES AND REPORTS OF INTEREST | 45 | 1.8 | 25 |
| PREPARATION OF WRITTEN WORKS | 12 | 0.48 | 13, 25 |
| SELF-STUDY | 14 | 0.56 | 6, 19, 25 |
LEARNING ACTIVITIES
I. Directed activity:
THEORY
Lectures (60 min)
A. LANGUAGE, DOCUMENTATION AND METHOD OF MEDICINE (Prof. Josep Sánchez Aldeguer)
1. Information in the medical sciences
2. The medical language and the structure of the medical terms
3. Neologisms and obstacles to communication in medicine
4. Medical documents: structure, function and location
5. The systems of retrieval of the bibliographic information
6. The medical history
7. The cycle of research in medical sciences
8. Observation and experimentation in medicine
9. Strategies for obtaining data
10. The medical act and the clinical reasoning: the diagnostic hypothesis and the prognostic judgment
B. ILLNESS, CULTURE AND POPULATION (Prof. Jorge Molero Mesa)
11. The disease as a historical, biological, social and cultural phenomenon
12. The first vestiges of the disease. Paleopathology
13. The historical demography and the structure of the populations
14. Illness, population and society. The historical epidemiology
15. The society against the disease. Medical systems
16. The disease to archaic cultures
17. The disease in classical cultures
C. THE MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS APPLICATION TO THE WESTERN (Prof. Jorge Molero Mesa)
18. Diffusion and validity of Greek classical medicine
19. The Galenic traditional medicine
20. The origins of modern scientific medicine
21. The modern medicine of the 17th and 18th centuries
22. The experimental medicine
D. THE DISEASE AND THE PROCESS OF MEDICALIZATION (Prof. Jorge Molero Mesa)
23. From personal hygiene to public hygiene
24. Plague and miasmatic theory
25. Cholera and Industrial Revolution
26. Positivism and sanitarism in the prevention of the disease
27. Tuberculosis and the social question
28. Eugenics:agreements and divergencesabout "good birth" and "good living"
29. Sanitary internationalism and colonial difference
30. Gender relations in the health sciences
LABORATORY PRACTICES
Practical class in specialized space - Computer room (180 min)
31. Analysis of medical terms (E)
32. Access to medical documents (F)
SPECIALIZED SEMINARS
Seminar in specialized space (60 min)
33, 34, 35. Material culture of Medicine (G)
II. Autonomous activities:
Comprehensive reading of articles and reports of interest (45 hours)
Personal study (14 hours)
Preparation and presentation of works (12 hours)
III. Supervised activities:
Presentation / Oral presentation of works (6 hours)
IV. Deliveries:
Copy of the work done at the seminars
Place: Secretary's Office of History of Medicine
Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.
Assessment
Continous Assessment Activities
| Title | Weighting | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Practices: Written evaluations through objective tests: Selection items: Elements of multiple choice | 20% | 2 | 0.08 | 1, 6, 18, 19, 25 |
| Seminars: Evaluation through practical cases and resolution of problems and oral defence of works | 30% | 2 | 0.08 | 1, 2, 4, 3, 5, 8, 9, 24, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 23, 25 |
| Theory: Assessments written through objective tests: Items of selection: Multiple choice. | 50% | 2 | 0.08 | 2, 3, 8, 7, 6, 9, 24, 12, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 22, 21, 23, 19, 10 |
The system of evaluation of the acquisition of the competences for this matter is organized in three modules that correspond to thematic blocks and teaching typologies.
Theory: Assessments written through objective tests: Selection items: Elements of multiple choice (50%). The evaluation of the theoretical part of the subject is equivalent to 5 points (out of 10) of the overall grade of the course and will be carried out through a 35-question multiple choice exam, which will include the subject matter of the subject blocks A, B, C and D. The students must obtain at least 2.5 points to pass this section.
Practices: Assessments written through objective tests: Selection items: Items of multiple choice (20%). The evaluation of the practical part (blocks E and F) equals 2 points (out of 10) of the global mark of the subject. It will be carried out by means of a 15 multiple choice questions corresponding to practices 1 and 2. The students must obtain at least one point to pass this section.
Seminars: Evaluation through practical cases and resolution of problems and oral defence of works (30%). The evaluation of the seminars (block G) equals 3 points (out of 10) of the overall grade of the subject. It will be carried out through the participation in the seminar (Problem-Based Learning -PBL-) and the realization and presentation of works. The student must obtain at least one and a half points to pass this section.
The final score will be the sum of the points obtained. In order for the assessment to be effective, the student must pass each one of the different tests separately.
On carrying out each evaluation activity, lecturers will inform students (on Moodle) of the procedures to be followed for reviewing all grades awarded, and the date on which such a review will take place.
The students who have not passed the subject will be able to submit to a proof of recovery of the blocks A, B, C and D (Theory) and blocks E and F (Practices). The recovery of the evaluation of the block G (Seminars) is not contemplated given its teaching methodology in problem-based learning (PBL).
To participate in the recovery students must have previously been evaluated of thematic blocks whose weight equals to a minimum of two thirds of the total grade of thesubject.
In addition, to participate in the recovery students must have obtained at least 3.5 in the total grade of the subject.
The students who do not perform the theoretical and practical assessment tests will be considered as not evaluable, exhausting the rights to the registration of the subject
In the event of a student committing any irregularity that may lead to a significant variation in the grade awarded to an assessment activity, the student will be given a zero for this activity, regardless of any disciplinary process that may take place. In the event of several irregularities in assessment activities of the same subject, the student will be given a zero as the final grade for this subject.
This subject does not incorporate single assessment.
Bibliography
Specific bibliography
López Piñero, José María. La medicina en la historia. Madrid: La Esfera de los Libros; 2002.
López Piñero, Jose María; Terrada Ferrandis, Maria Luz. Introducción a la medicina. Barcelona: Crítica; 2000.
Barona Vilar, Josep Lluís, editor. Manual de Historia de la Medicina. Valencia: Editorial Tirant lo Blanch; 2023.
Barona Vilar, Josep Lluís. Introducció a la medicina. València: Universitat de València; 1992.
Rodríguez Ocaña, Esteban. Por la salud de las naciones. Higiene, microbiología y medicina social. Madrid: Akal; 1992.
Reference bibliography
Cooter, Roger: Pickstone John V. Companion to medicine in the twentieth century. London-New York: Routledge; 2003.
Ripoll Miralda, Jaume. Grec mèdic: guia per identificar termes. Barcelona: Publicacions de l'Abadia de Montserrat; 2018.
Bernabeu Mestre, Josep. El llenguatge de les ciències de la salut. Introducció a la formació de termes mèdics. València: Conselleria de Sanitat i Consum de la Generalitat Valenciana / Universitat d'Alacant; 1995.
Cueva Martín, Alejandro de la; Aleixandre Benavent, Rafael; Rodríguez i Gairín, Josep Manuel. Fonts d'informació en ciències de la salut. Valencia: Universitat de València; 2002.
Harding, SandraG. Ciencia y feminismo. Madrid: Morata; 1996.
López Piñero, Jose María; Terrada Ferrandis, Maria Luz. Introducción a la terminología médica. 2ª ed. Barcelona: Masson; 2005.
Medicina Clínica. Manual de estilo. Publicaciones biomédicas. Barcelona: Doyma; 1993
Navarro Acebes, Xavier. Curs pràctic de terminologia mèdica. 2a ed. Bellaterra: Servei de Publicacions de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona; 1998.
Internet resources
ICJME. Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals
Diccionari Enciclopèdic de Medicina
Diccionario médico-biológico, histórico y etimológico
Software
No specific software required
Language list
| Name | Group | Language | Semester | Turn |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| (PLAB) Practical laboratories | 101 | Spanish | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (PLAB) Practical laboratories | 102 | Spanish | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (PLAB) Practical laboratories | 103 | Spanish | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (PLAB) Practical laboratories | 104 | Spanish | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (PLAB) Practical laboratories | 105 | Spanish | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (PLAB) Practical laboratories | 106 | Spanish | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (PLAB) Practical laboratories | 107 | Spanish | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (PLAB) Practical laboratories | 108 | Spanish | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (PLAB) Practical laboratories | 109 | Spanish | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (PLAB) Practical laboratories | 110 | Catalan | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (PLAB) Practical laboratories | 111 | Catalan | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (PLAB) Practical laboratories | 112 | Catalan | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (PLAB) Practical laboratories | 113 | Catalan | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (PLAB) Practical laboratories | 114 | Catalan | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (PLAB) Practical laboratories | 115 | Catalan | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (PLAB) Practical laboratories | 116 | Catalan | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (PLAB) Practical laboratories | 117 | Catalan | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (PLAB) Practical laboratories | 118 | Catalan | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (SEM) Seminars | 101 | Catalan | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (SEM) Seminars | 102 | Catalan | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (SEM) Seminars | 103 | Catalan | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (SEM) Seminars | 104 | Catalan | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (SEM) Seminars | 105 | Catalan | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (SEM) Seminars | 106 | Catalan | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (SEM) Seminars | 107 | Catalan | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (SEM) Seminars | 108 | Catalan | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (SEM) Seminars | 109 | Catalan | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (SEM) Seminars | 110 | Catalan | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (SEM) Seminars | 111 | Catalan | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (SEM) Seminars | 112 | Catalan | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (SEM) Seminars | 113 | Catalan | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (SEM) Seminars | 114 | Catalan | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (SEM) Seminars | 115 | Catalan | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (SEM) Seminars | 116 | Catalan | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (SEM) Seminars | 117 | Catalan | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (SEM) Seminars | 118 | Catalan | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (TE) Theory | 101 | Catalan/Spanish | first semester | afternoon |
| (TE) Theory | 102 | Catalan/Spanish | first semester | afternoon |
| (TE) Theory | 103 | Catalan/Spanish | first semester | afternoon |
| (TE) Theory | 104 | Catalan/Spanish | first semester | afternoon |