Medical students: learning experience in physical medicine and rehabilitation

Every medical student at Mayo Medical School participates in a three-week training program in the department of physical medicine and rehabilitation. Since 1974-1975, approximately 40 students have had this experience each academic year. In addition to lectures, the learning experience includes clinical cases involving hospitalized patients and outpatients. Students are evaluated by written and oral examinations. At the end of the course, the students submit a list of patients seen during their rotation and another list of procedures they learned. For the classes of 1980, 1981, and 1982, the frequency of medical conditions seen and procedures learned by the medical students have been computed. The most common conditions seen by the 116 students were low back pain (92.2%), hemiplegia (87.9%), paraplegia (85.3%), quadriplegia (81%), and tension myalgia (79.3%). The procedures learned and demonstrated most frequently were crutch gaits (95.7%), muscle testing (94%), and goniometry (94%). Sixty students returned course evaluation forms at the conclusion of the program, the results of which indicated that high value is placed on this educational program.