Helping students with learning difficulties in medical and health-care education

In health profession education many more students than is currently acknowledged experience often extreme difficulties with their studying. This booklet is intended to help them. It outlines an approach being adopted in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Southampton by which students are encouraged to reflect on and discuss their approaches to studying, identifying their perception of their task and where necessary changing this. It is shown that students need to elaborate their knowledge, that is to structure the factual information they are receiving and to relate it to their practical experiences. A number of suggestions are made to encourage this, and their theoretical underpinnings are discussed. It is concluded that while inappropriate curricula and teaching methods and not some weakness on the part of students are largely the cause of learning difficulties, it will take time to change these. Establishing a kind of 'clinic' for helping students cope can be of value immediately.