Audit and feedback by medical students to improve the preventive care practices of general practice supervisors

Medical students benefit from their contact with clinicians and patients in the clinical setting. However, little is known about whether patients and clinicians also benefit from medical students. We developed an audit and feedback intervention activity to be delivered by medical students to their general practice supervisors. We tested whether the repeated cycle of audit had an effect on the preventive care practices of general practitioners (GPs).

The students performed an audit on topics of preventive medicine and gave feedback to their supervisors. Each supervisor in the study had more than one student performing the audit over the academic year.

After repetitive cycles of audit and feedback, the recording of social history items by GPs improved. For example, recording alcohol history increased from 24% to 36%.

This study shows that medical students can be effective auditors, and their repeated audits may improve their general practice supervisors' recording of some aspects of social history.