Clinical skills program as a laboratory method is a valuable adjunct to other forms of undergraduate medical training. This article describes the process of developing a core curriculum in clinical skills based on the Dundee model for a clinical skills centre. The School of Medical Sciences, in Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) has been provided with a well equipped skills centre. However, the PBL curriculum in the undergraduate medical program in the school needs to be integrated with a clinical skills lab program. This is to counter the general feeling that the contribution of PBL is insignificant in terms of building clinical competency in an integrated system such as that used in USM compared to the traditional curricula of other medical teaching institutions in Malaysia. Integrating clinical skills laboratory training with the PBL curriculum will provide evidence of PBL as an effective and innovative method for teaching and learning in Malaysia.
skills ; Clinical ; curriculum aspects ; Malaysia ; Teaching aspects

Recently, eastern medicine is reconsidered favorably. For example, most of Kampo-drugs are covered by health insurance and the essence of the eastern medicine is now included in the curriculum of medical education program. However, eastern medicine can not yet get rid of “placebo” effects, and should be re-evaluated through randomized double blind controlled studies. It is absolutely important to know merits and demerits of Western and Eastern medicine and to apply to the patients integrative medicine.
Medicine ; Western Herbs and Botanicals ; Medicine, Kampo ; demerits ; curriculum aspects