gms | German Medical Science

Objectives: Didactical training for clinical teachers is likely to improve the quality of their teaching sessions, especially for young clinical teachers. Uncertain is whether an effect of a didactical training could be observed on a highly structured emergency medicine course. As relevant outcome measure we decided on student’s performance during assessment after the course.

Methods: 16 clinical teachers (emergency medical physicians and anaesthesiologists, clinical experience 1 to 8 years) were matched as pairs concerning clinical experience and gender and then randomly assigned to didactical training of 20 hrs duration (group A) or to no training (group B). They taught emergency medicine to 3rd year medical students (n=211). Each group of students was exclusively taught by either group A or group B teachers. Course time was 13 hrs, the students – teacher ratio was 18 : 4 with a clearly defined structure of rotating skill stations and discussion groups. After the course student’s performance was assessed by short MCQ and SCE (structured clinical examination).

Results: 95 students with group A clinical teachers achieved a median of 71.4% (57-84%, 25.-75. percentile) correct answers in the MCQ, and a median of 76.7% (63-87%) in SCE. 99 students with group B teachers reached a median of 78.6% (64-86%) in the MCQ test, and 71,2% (59-85%) in the SCE. Statistical analysis revealed no significant difference for any of the tests.

Conclusion: Basic didactical training for clinical teachers within a structured emergency medicine course does not improve student’s performance in theoretical and practical assessment..