Enhancing hospital discharge summary writing skills: a pilot study on a competency-based training model

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Clinical Communication
• Health Professions Education

Background:

• Discharge summaries (DS) are vital clinical documents for patient care continuity.
• Effective DS writing is a core competency for intern doctors but often underdeveloped.
• Lack of formal training leads to suboptimal DS quality and communication breakdowns.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of a one-day in-person workshop on discharge summary (DS) writing skills for final year medical students.
• To assess the impact of the workshop on students' understanding, confidence, and objective performance in writing DS.
• To provide a tailored DS writing intervention for surgical/orthopedic admissions.

Main Methods:

• A one-day in-person workshop was delivered to 58 final year medical students.
• Intervention included pre/post-assessments, lectures, small-group work, and tutor feedback.
• Participant perceptions were assessed via Likert scale surveys; DS quality was graded by blinded specialists.

Main Results:

• 98.2% of participants reported improved DS writing skills and recommended the workshop.
• Significant post-workshop improvements were observed in understanding DS purpose, structure, and requirements (p<0.001).
• Objective DS scores improved significantly, with total scores rising from 15.54 to 20.53 (p<0.001).

Conclusions:

• This DS writing workshop effectively enhanced students' skills and confidence.
• The intervention is the first tailored for orthopedic/surgical admissions, addressing specific clinical needs.
• Competency-based, hands-on DS training should be integrated into medical education for better intern preparedness.