Undergraduate

This module is run in collaboration with the disciplines of Public Health and Primary Care. The psychiatry element of this module is taught through a didactic series of sixteen lectures, supported by seven problem-based learning tutorials. Learning aims include helping students understand the role of psychological factors in health and illness, introducing students to the importance of psychological responses to illness, enabling students to understand the role of cognitive functioning in health and illness, and equipping students with relevant psychological knowledge, from cognitive and social psychology, to support their professional practice.

This course has been developed in collaboration with the Departments of Anatomy, Biochemistry, Pharmacology and Physiology. We introduce basic ideas in Neuropsychology, including cognition, memory, mood, attention and perception. Sleep and Pain are further topics, while joint symposia examine selected clinical conditions from the different viewpoints. The aim is to introduce students to the psychology and neurobiology of normal brain functions that underpin clinical psychiatry.

This course is run as part of the clinical skills training programme run over the course of the year. The aim of the course is to provide students with basics skills required for effective communication with patients and staff. Skills taught are based on the Calgary Cambridge approach to communication in medicine and delivered via small group teaching using role play and video feedback.

This course, part of the Advanced Clinical and Professional Practice module, builds on psychiatry teaching in the first and second years and is designed to deepen student knowledge of the psychology of health behaviour change, extend student understanding of mental health difficulties, including as they present in a general health setting, and to elaborate upon psychological aspects of understanding and caring for oneself as a clinician. The course is comprised of in-person didactic lectures, online training, peer-learning, and small group teaching.

Clinical and theoretical aspects of psychiatry are covered during the two-month in-person attachment. Students are assigned to multidisciplinary teams involved in the day-to-day work of Tallaght University Hospital, St Patrick's University Hospital and St James's Hospital, interviewing patients and presenting their findings to members of their clinical teams. In company with team members, students visit the psychiatric and general wards, the out-patients' department, Accident and Emergency department, day centres and, when possible, their patients' own homes. Experiential learning includes case conferences, case presentations, tutorials, and observed interviews. These tasks are structured to give students guidance as they progress through the module. Specialist attachments are made to Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Intellectual Disability, Psychiatry in Later Life, Substance Misuse and Forensic Psychiatry facilities. Progressive assessments and an end of block examination contribute 50% of the marks, with the remaining 50% available via an end of year written paper.

Further clinical opportunities and teaching are provided to small groups of students. Revision tutorials are arranged and a series of revision lectures provided.