gms | German Medical Science

Introduction: The final year of medical education is considered to be especially important in that it aims to aid the transition between students’ college years and their future professional career and is crucial in making them “fit for purpose”. During this period of time final year students should completely be integrated into ward-teams and ward procedures in order to improve their proficiency in independent patient management. Clerkships are generally seen as a very favourable learning environment for final year students. As on-ward supervision has proven to be rare, we introduced an innovative model for final year student’s structured supervision directly on ward with physicians serving as final year student supervisors that are not identical with the current ward doctor.

Aim: Evaluation of an innovative model of final year student supervision on ward.

Method: 16 final year students received continuous teaching and supervision on ward through final year student supervisor during first eight weeks of their stay. Learning goals included patient’s history taking, physical examination, ward rounds and chart documentation, patient presentation, DRG coding and writing medical reports. Acceptability was measured with self-administered surveys pre / post intervention and a focus group analyses.

Results: The final year student on ward supervision program was considered to be useful by (Mean 1.25 ± SA 0.44) and to improve clinical and commicative skills (2.10 ± 1.40). A pre/post analysis showed significant improvement in patient history taking (p<.0.005) and in parts of physical examination (p<.0.05). It was considered to be a helpful teaching model to prepare for independent patient management and future profession.

Conclusions: A final year student on ward supervision program is a feasible, useful and well accepted tool in final year medical education that assures supervision and conveys independent patient management.