Consent to medical student teaching: an observational, cross-sectional study exploring the patient view

New Zealand guidelines stipulate that patient consent is obtained for medical student involvement in clinical care, however, patients' preferences regarding consent for medical student teaching have not been widely explored. This study examined patient preferences for consent for medical student teaching with the aim to increase patient empowerment, to optimise care and to reflect societal expectations more accurately.

Observational, semi-qualitative, cross-sectional study of in-patients. Each participant was presented with a series of nine hypothetical clinical scenarios and were allowed a limited number of responses. For each scenario the participants completed a short questionnaire about their preferences for consent. These included their preferred mode of consent (implicit, verbal or written), timing of consent, and who should take their consent. The analysis used descriptive statistics and ordinal logistic regression mixed models to investigate associations between patient characteristics and chosen mode of consent.

There were 123 participants (50% male), median age was 64 years. Patients were admitted to either medical (69%), surgical (22%) or women's health (9%). Increasing age was statistically significantly associated with a preference for verbal and implicit rather than written consent with the exception of 'breaking bad news' and 'bedside teaching'. The majority of patients preferred verbal consent across all nine clinical scenarios (57-82%), including two surgical scenarios where verbal consent was preferred by 59%. Most patients preferred the supervising doctor to take consent, with no clear preference about the timing.

This study identifies the patient voice in the consent process for the involvement of medical students in clinical care. Although the patients' views generally align with an existing national consensus statement, there is variability in the expectations of the patients suggesting flexibility in the consent process is still needed. The preference for older patients for verbal or implicit consent compared with younger patients for more invasive scenarios highlights the need for consideration of inter-generational differences. Most patients in this study were willing to contribute to student learning in all scenarios.