The New Integrated Curriculum at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, Which comprises three major longitudinal strands, was first implemented in 1998 to provide better integration of clinical and basic medical sciences. One of these longitudinal strands, the Doctor, Patients, Health and Society (DPHS) module, emphasizes the importance of developing good communication skills as well as introducing students to behavioural sciences, public health medicine, statistics and epidemiology. Community Family Case Studies (CFCS), within this module, have been used as a means for students to focus on these aspects, as the students are introduced to patients, their families and their community in Year 1 of the medical course and are required to follow them up throughout their five-year training period.
Several medical schools in Southeast Asia have identified deficiencies in their undergraduate medical education that result in inappropriate training of students for the health-care problems that exist in their respective countries. Curriculum changes have been made that take students out of the laboratory and the subspecialty-oriented university hospital and place them in extramural programs in the community. Both the deficiencies identified and the solutions developed merit study by North American medical educators, especially those teaching primary care in family practice.
The Community Follow-up Project (CFUP) is a project where medical students choose a hospital in-ward patient during their clinical ward-based attachments and follow-up this patient's progress after discharge from the hospital. The students do a series of home visits and also accompany their patients for some of their follow-ups at the hospital, government clinics, general practitioners' clinics and even to the palliative care or social welfare centres. The students assess the physical, psychological and social impact of the illness on the patient, family and community. By following their patients from the time their patients were in the hospital and back to their homes and community, the students are able to understand in depth the problems faced by patients, the importance of communication skills in educating patients on their illness and the importance of good communication between primary, secondary and tertiary care.