Irish students and medical education

The attitudes of a final year of medical students in University College Dublin and their level of satisfaction to their medical training was assessed. Medical students were significantly more dissatisfied with their pre-clinical teaching than clinical teaching and training. The majority of students felt inadequately trained in dealing with specific issues relating to patient care and communication. The most popular suggestions for improving the undergraduate teaching programme included increasing the use of patient case vignettes, small group tutorials and presenting patients' cases.