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Abstract Category: Methods

Poster ID: M21

A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF ATTITUDES TO UNDERGRADUATE MEDICAL TRAINING IN THE UNITED KINGDOM

Emyr P.M. Humphreys, M.B.B.S.*, Senior House Officer, Department of Rheumatology, University Hospital of Wales, Heath Park, Cardiff, CF14 4XW, U.K., Georgina Malakounides, M.B.B.S., Senior House Officer, and Seema Biswas, M.R.C.S., Specialist Registrar Year 3, Department of General Surgery, Kent and Canterbury Hospital, Ethelbert Road, Canterbury, Kent, CT1 3NG, U.K.

Training for medical undergraduates in the United Kingdom has undergone considerable reform in recent years with a greater emphasis on problem based, self-directed learning, and a drive away from traditional structured teaching. Reductions in didactic teaching are compounded by the need to accommodate increasing numbers of students into medical courses.   

A qualitative study comprising two videotaped forty five minute discussions with groups of medical teachers and final year medical students from Guy’s, King’s and St Thomas ’ Hospital Medical Schools, London , was conducted at a district general hospital in South East England. Recurrent themes in these discussions were identified and explored in the context of recent changes in the delivery of medical education in England .

Both students and teachers welcomed a greater emphasis on good clinical teaching, especially teaching in small groups. Recurrent themes of concern arising from the discussions, however, were that although a strong knowledge base is essential for the development of adequate clinical reasoning, current provision of structured formal teaching and basic medical knowledge is deficient. Problem based learning (self-directed learning aimed to challenge students to "learn to learn") has been introduced into the medical undergraduate curriculum at the cost of ward-based teaching and close patient involvement and follow up by students. This has failed to endow students with the skills necessary to reach sensible differential diagnoses and work through common clinical problems. Good communication skills are important but not a substitute for a useful medical knowledge. Medical school examinations should be more relevant to real life clinical practice.

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