The role of early inter-professional and inter-agency encounters in increasing students’ awareness of the clinical and community context of medicine

Coordinated input from a variety of health and social care professionals into medical education helps students to become strong, effective, successful and competent future practitioners able to function within the multi-disciplinary environment which characterizes modern medicine. This paper presents a new model of teaching developed within the context of the Phase 1 Medicine Programme at Durham, which has been used to help prepare students for this by intertwining a selection of lectures and activities run by external organizations with additional clinical exposure and experience. This one-week learning journey was called the Additional Clinical Experience (ACE) week, and now forms an integral part of the curriculum at Durham University.