Involving Medical Students in Informed Consent: A Pilot Study

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Patient Safety
• Surgical Education

Background:

• Patient comprehension of informed consent is often inadequate.
• Traditional methods like written materials offer limited improvement.
• Informed consent education is lacking in German medical universities.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess patient retention of surgical information.
• To evaluate an additional conversation between patients and prepared medical students.
• To determine if this adjunct improves patient and student understanding of surgery.

Main Methods:

• Cross-sectional study involving 55 patients and 9 medical students.
• Patients provided informed consent 1-3 days prior to surgery.
• Medical students conducted structured interviews using assessment forms on common complications.

Main Results:

• Only 18.2% of patients could recall two or more complications; 45.3% recalled none.
• Despite initial claims, 5.8% couldn't identify the surgical site.
• 96.4% of patients and 100% of students found the teaching unit significantly improved learning.

Conclusions:

• The Students teaching patients (SteP) initiative is a cost-efficient tool for enhancing patient education and student learning.
• SteP increases patient awareness of treatments and student understanding of explaining procedures.
• The study plans to integrate SteP into routine clinical practice and expand the pilot study for broader validation.