Students' perceptions of time spent during clinical rotations

Some rotations during clinical education are characterized by a high number of hours spent per week in the hospital because students panicipate in a hospital on-call system, i.e. hours beyond usual working hours, e.g. at night. However, students complain about spending too many hours in the hospital on non-instructive activities. This study was undertaken to investigate differences among rotations in time spent in hospital, in on-call hours, in self-study and in non-instructive activities and to investigate the relationship between time spent on the various activities and the overall effectiveness as perceived by students. A questionnaire was administered to students at the end of various clinical rotations. Rotations differ considerably in time spent in hospital, on call (i.e. beyond usual working hours), on self-study and on non-instructive activities. In some rotations students report spending on average 18-20% of their time in the hospital on non-instructive activities. Furthermore, the numbers of hours spent in hospital do not correlate with the overall effectiveness as perceived by students, unless the numbers of hours spent in non-instructive activities are taken into account. The effectiveness of a rotation does not automatically improve if students spend more hours in hospital. The number of hours spent on non-instructive activities should be reduced in some rotations and should be kept as low as possible. Further research is needed to find out which activities are perceived as non-instructive.