Abstract

Fourth year medical students' experience of learning in a shadowing session

Author(s): Amina Cassim, Detlef Richard Prozesky

Introduction: Clinical skills programmes in undergraduate medical curricula vary in structure and evaluation. At the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, third and fourth year undergraduate medical students until 2009 attended two activities in the Health Practice Day (HPD): the Formal Session of patient clerking in hospital and presentation of cases, and, supervised practice in history taking and examination in the Clinical Skills Session. Evaluation occurred with student surveys. In 2006, students indicated insufficient clinical exposure. However, a comprehensive evaluation of the Formal Session, demonstrated students as not using effectively the time left over in these scheduled sessions for seeing patients independently in the wards. In 2009, a Shadowing Session was introduced in the HPD to structure the extra time for shadowing registrars in rostered duties. This study investigated students’ experience of learning in the shadowing to determine if this structure could be effective.

Method: A cross-sectional descriptive study with a survey gauged students’ learning in shadowing over a three month period.

Results: The response rate was 90.5%. Students were exposed to a variety of rostered activities which they rated mainly positively. Some expressed need for active participation.

Conclusion: Shadowing proved to be a viable opportunity for extending clinical exposure in academic hospitals.

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