Activities in Basic Training

General Objectives

Objectives Relating to Skills
These skills are essential to consultant practice in paediatrics and its sub-specialities. They are further developed during Advanced Training.

Clinical Skills:

• The ability to take an accurate, logical and organised medical and psychosocial history from patients and their caregivers, including those who have several complicated illnesses, using appropriate perspective, tact and judgement
• The ability to perform an accurate physical and mental state examination in complex medical problems, often involving multiple systems
• The ability to integrate and interpret the history and examination findings and arrive at appropriate diagnoses
• The ability to formulate a management plan with rational and effective use of investigations, techniques and to provide management in conjunction with the patient, the caregivers and other health professionals
• The ability to judge which conditions take priority over others
• The ability to communicate clearly, considerately and sensitively with children, caregivers and other relatives
• The ability to critically appraise literature and current practice
• Counselling skills
• Procedural skills
• The ability to incorporate ethical issues, such as confidentiality and confidential computerised record keeping, ethics and medico-legal aspects of informed consent, into practice.

Professional Etiquette:

• The ability to handle complaints including criticism of one's self or of colleagues by patients
• Understanding the importance of a second opinion and advice from other health professionals.

Management of Grief and Bereavement:

• Care of the distressed and dying child and their parents
• Conveying bad news, answering questions from children and relatives and handling the emotional aspects for this communication
• Making decisions concerning resuscitation
• Immediate management of bereavement
• Requests for organ donation.

Technical Skills

• Venepuncture, venesection, cannulation, intravenous and intraosseous infusion
• Arterial access including blood gas sampling
• Injection techniques
• Management of the compromised airway and airway intubation
• Cardiopulmonary resuscitation
• Urinary catheterisation, male and female, and urine analysis and microscopy
• Lumbar puncture
• Insertion of chest tubes.

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