diploma of advanced training in medical sciences (DFASM)

What does the second cycle contain?

Teaching moves from the fundamental sciences to clinical medicine, organised around the situations a doctor meets in practice. At the same time the student takes on hospital duties as an externe, attached to a department, taking part in ward rounds, writing observations and serving on-call periods. These years build the clinical reflexes that the ECOS later assess, while the knowledge component is tested by the EDN.

How does it end?

The diploma is awarded at the end of the cycle, at master level. The examinations and the record of the student's course are combined into a national ranking, which governs the allocation of a speciality and a regional subdivision, and therefore the DES that the student will follow during the internat. The medical degree itself comes later still, with the these d'exercice.

What does this mean for students who studied abroad?

Equivalent second cycles exist throughout Europe, with the same clinical weight and the same expression in ECTS credits, though the hospital status of the student and the way the years are assessed differ from one country to another. For a student from Morocco, Algeria or Tunisia enrolled in an EU faculty, this is the period when clinical French deserves deliberate attention, whatever the language of teaching, since a future in France or in a French-speaking hospital at home runs through consultations conducted in French.

A common misunderstanding

An externe is often described as a young doctor. The externe is a student with defined hospital duties, working under supervision and receiving an allowance for those duties; responsibility for patients remains with the practitioners of the department. Confusing this stage with the internat leads to serious miscalculation of how long the whole course takes.