Introduction
This syllabus is intended to act as a guide for students and their instructors in medical schools. It describes the range of clinical presentations that they should be able to recognize and the underlying conditions that they should know how to treat. It also includes knowledge of the practice of Acute Internal Medicine (AIM) and systems of care. The appropriate level of knowledge is that which would be expected of a non-specialist Foundation year doctor.
It is expected that students will have a working knowledge of anatomy, physiology, pathophysiology, pharmacology and therapeutics. It would also be useful to have an understanding of clinical skills, diagnostic reasoning and potential cognitive bias.
Many of the items in this syllabus can be delivered in a variety of acute care settings, e.g. the Emergency Department (ED), medical specialties, and the Intensive Therapy Unit (ITU), but attachment to an Acute Medical Unit (AMU) provides an ideal opportunity to see the delivery of acute care in this specific context.