Since 2006, MBChB students have had the opportunity to select the Sleep module from those offered by Warwick Medical School's SSM (SSC in new curriculum). The Module Leaders are Professor Francesco Cappuccio and Dr Michelle Miller.

Introduction: Sleep Medicine offers the potential to integrate learning across a number of areas of interest to Medical Students. Scientific exploration of basic chronobiology and the physical biology of light receptors will lead to consideration of some of the social scientific aspects of sleep and the public health implications. Along the way, students will have the opportunity to consider the role of sleep in psychiatry, in child health, and in diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease. A strong focus will be on epidemiology, because, as the story unravels, work on the epidemiology of sleep can act as a model for understanding causality in many metabolic conditions. This is primarily a research-led module with lectures from world-renowned experts in their field.

Aim: The aim is primarily to demonstrate through learning linked to one broad topic how the scientific basis of medicine links into multiple clinical applications, and, therefore, that clinicians benefit from developing a process of clinical reasoning which integrates learning from different sources.

Objectives: At the end of the Module, students are able to:

• Relate recent biomedical research in circadian rhythms to a social perspective of sleep patterns in populations.

• Interpret epidemiological data on sleeping habits in the light of reported individual variation in sleep patterns, and sleep laboratory tests.

• Critically appraise epidemiological evidence on sleep and morbidity in obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

• Engage with public health aspects of sleep deprivation in Accidents, Shift Working or Child Health, and to be able to discuss the relative merits of preventative strategies in these areas.