The problem student on clinical rotations: a comparison of Malaysian and North American views

The purpose of this study is to explore the types of problem students that clinical teachers encounter in clinical settings. A questionnaire developed by the Association of American Medical Colleges that lists a variety of types of problem students was completed by 466 clinicians at the University of Washington School of Medicine (UWSOM) and 98 Malaysian clinicians from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) and Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). In addition, 120 medical students from UKM completed a slightly modified version of this questionnaire. Both the faculty and student questionnaires asked the respondent to identify the frequency of a given problem type. The faculty was also asked to estimate how difficult it was to evaluate a specific problem. In general, there was strong agreement among the North American and Malaysian faculty on the frequency and difficulty of the 24 types of problem students listed. There were some notable differences, such as Malaysian teachers perceiving the "shy" student more frequently than their North American counterparts who rated the student with deficits in knowledge more frequently. However, the overall similarity in the rankings suggest that clinical teachers face similar types of problems, independent of cultural differences and institutional differences.