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Building confidence for work as house officers: student experience in the final year of a new problem-based
Carl R Whitehouse1, Paul O'Neill, Tim Dornan
1University of Manchester Medical School, UK. carl.whitehouse@man.ac.uk
Introduction:
Newly qualified doctors require an appropriate level of confidence for their new roles. Development of this confidence was a key objective in the final year of a new integrated course with an emphasis on student self-direction.
Context:
There are 5 placements in the final year course. Students use a Learning Planner to help them choose suitable placements and objectives to serve their learning needs. Educational supervision focuses on helping students determine their objectives and assessing them against these.
Methods:
Course evaluation was by means of a questionnaire during final assessments. Cohorts of 310 and 316 students in successive years completed the evaluation. The interrelationship between variables was explored using logistic regression.
Results:
220/310 students in the 2000 cohort and 214/316 in the 2001 cohort agreed they felt confident with their prospective role as a pre-registration house officer (PRHO). Confidence was significantly associated with confidence in their clinical skills, belief in their ability to cope with uncertainty and feeling able to work as a team member. The experience of the 2 hospital placements and (in 2000 only) the elective was associated with increased confidence. In all placements helpful educational supervision and the achievement of the self-directed learning plan was associated with increased confidence as a potential doctor.
Conclusion:
Students perceive a relationship between learning experiences in the final year of a self-directed course and development of confidence for their future role. Whilst further elucidation of the nature of this relationship is required, this provides encouragement to curriculum planners to promote self-direction.