Undergraduate medical students' rating of clerkship in general practice

In recent years there has been an increasing demand for more involvement of general practice in undergraduate medical education. General practice and primary care can contribute with a relevant clinical content but also be a major resource in facilitating of professional development of the medical student. In the reformed undergraduate medical education of the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Linköping, Sweden, general practice has been given an important and extensive role. To evaluate the students' opinion on the recurrent clerkships in general practice a written questionnaire was given to all students after each clerkship. In the autumn of 1992, 74% of the 115 students answered this questionnaire. The questionnaire was focused on qualities regarded as important for creating the best educational milieu for the professional development of the student. Factor analysis of the different questionnaire headings showed a good construct validity. The distinct constituent elements were those of the clerkship structure, the amount of tutoring, and the student-tutor relationship. The students' overall satisfaction was high. It was not gender-related, nor did it fall with increasing semester stage. It was mainly determined by the qualitative clerkship and provider factors. The strongest of these was the 'quality of tutoring' whereas the 'quantity of tutoring' was weakest. Considering that the general practitioners were relatively inexperienced as educators, these results were both gratifying and promising, although they indicate a need for further improvement of the competence of the tutoring general practitioners.