Perception of educational value in clinical rotations by medical students

Clinical teaching in Australian medical schools has changed to meet the needs of substantially increased medical student cohorts. As such, formal feedback from these student cohorts is needed about the value they place on the educational input from each clinical rotation. This study aims to determine which aspects of clinical placements are most educationally useful to medical students.

In this study, final year medical students from the University of Western Australia (UWA) were surveyed via an anonymous online questionnaire, identifying which clinical placements were found to be the most and the least useful to their learning and the positive aspects of these placements. Two focus groups were conducted prior to the design of the questionnaire to determine the key areas of focus important to medical students. Ethics approval for this study was obtained from the UWA Human Research Ethics Committee.

Our focus groups were consistent in finding that students enjoyed placements where they were included as a part of the medical team and played a role in patient care. This was consistent with the concept that inclusiveness and participation in the clinical setting are important in developing competence in tasks and skills. The ratio of students to doctors was crucial, with a low ratio given a higher rating as seen in the rural clinical school.

The results of this project could benefit both the local and national medical curricula in identifying the most effective clinical attachments for learning and preparation for prevocational training. This is relevant especially due to the limited number of clinical placements and growing cohort of medical students. The results of this study can also be extrapolated to international medical education.