Teaching final-year medical students in a paediatric ambulatory care unit

The importance of community-based ambulatory experiences for medical students has been emphasised in the past few decades. Although such teaching programmes are assumed to be better for medical students, there is little evidence comparing the out-patient and in-patient experiences in student education.

We carried out a study to compare the educational experiences between two in-patient and out-patient clinical units.

Over a 12-week paediatric clerkship, 38 senior medical students attending the paediatric ward were divided into two groups. One group attended a 15-day paediatric out-patient clinic while the other group attended the in-patient programme.

Those who took part in the out-patient clinic programme obtained better scores in a test on common paediatric ambulatory problems when compared with the students who exclusively attended the in-patient teaching programme. The former group all agreed that this ambulatory paediatric course was a beneficial learning experience and consistent with their future career needs.