Students’ letters to patients as a part of education in family medicine

Mrduljaš-Đujić, Nataša; Pavličević, Ivančica; Marušić, Ana; Marušić, Matko

doi:10.5644/ama2006-124.36

Cited by 7 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Our qualitative analysis of patients’ reaction to letters [7] showed that some patients were initially anxious about getting a letter from their consultation in a family medicine office, as they are used to often getting bad news from specialists’ consultations of discharge letters from hospitals. However, after the experience, their responses were mostly positive and optimistic, not only from the point of view of information received (“I understood everything in the letter and now I know about my disease better than before.”) but a personal satisfaction and hope (“I periodically go back to read the letter again, and it helps me.”, “I found the letter very comforting and reassuring.”) [24]. We are currently working on a separated qualitative analysis of students’ evaluation of the letter-writing exercise to explore their satisfaction with the learning outcomes, interactions with the faculty and professionalism.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Writing letters to patients as an educational tool for medical students

Mrduljaš-Đujić

Žitnik²,

Pavelin

et al. 2013

BMC Med Educ

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BackgroundDespite rapid growth and development of medical technology, personal relationship between the patient and physician remains the basis of high quality treatment. The aim of our study was to develop, implement and evaluate patient therapeutic letters written by students as a tool in teaching family medicine.MethodsThe study included all 6th year students attending their rounds in family medicine, structured into two 10-day cycles, one in urban offices and one in offices on the Adriatic islands (rural). After receiving detailed instructions, students wrote letters to two patients after a consultation in the office. The letters were audited by patients and 3 family medicine experts who used a grading instrument (scale 0 – poor, 1 – medium, 2 – good) for 1) adequacy and clarity of description of patients’ disease/state, 2) knowledge, 3) adequacy of recommendations, 4) courtesy and respect and 5) language and style. Patients and experts were also asked to underline phrases they thought would be difficult to understand; the underlined text was subjected to content analysis.ResultsBoth the patients and the experts gave high scores for the value and quality of the letters in terms of the description of the problem, adequacy of recommendations given, and courtesy and respect (mean (±standard deviation) 5.65 ± 0.79 for patients vs. 4.87 ± 0.79 for experts out of maximum score of 6). Family medicine experts were stricter than patients in their evaluation of the content of the letters (adequacy and clarity of disease description (P < 0.001) and adequacy of recommendations (P < 0.001). Both the patients and the experts seemed to like longer letters as the length of the letter showed significant positive correlation with the quality summary score (correlation r = 0.492 vs. r = 0.338, respectively, P < 0.010). Overlapping of the text underlined as difficult to understand by patients and experts was found in 10 (11.6%) out of 86 letters. The highest overlap (20 terms) was found for the category “Technical terms unclear to a lay reader”.ConclusionsWriting of a letter to their first patients may be a useful tool for students to personally experience the practice of medicine and establish better partnership with patients in health care.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Writing letters to patients as an educational tool for medical students

Mrduljaš-Đujić

Žitnik²,

Pavelin

et al. 2013

BMC Med Educ

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“…e concept of holism is multidimensional and might be misunderstood as complementary and alternative medicine (6). Speci c teaching methods exist by which the holistic approach may be taught (watching movies, students' letter to patients) (22,23). ese methods were not used in previous education programs.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Final year medical students’ understanding of family medicine

Šter

Švab

Šter

2014

AMA

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Objective. e European Academy of Teachers in General Practice / Family Medicine (EURACT) has developed an educational agenda, the key document for teaching family medicine in Europe. e aim of our study was to nd out how nal year medical students at the beginning of their family medicine clerkship understand the discipline of family medicine. Methods. e attitudes toward family medicine were paraphrased and developed into a 164-item questionnaire, which was administered to 335 nal-year medical students at the beginning of their clerkship. Using combinatorial optimization with genetic algorithms we selected 30 items which yielded the highest Cronbach alpha reliability coe cient. Finally, we performed a factor analysis to nd which dimensions of family medicine were recognised by the students and compared them with the domains de ned in the EURACT de nition. Results. e 30-item questionnaire had a Cronbach alpha reliability coe cient of 0.919. e di erences between male and female students were not very signi cant (p=0.061). With the factor analysis we recognised seven factors, belonging to three out of six domains of the EURACT educational agenda: primary care management, personcenteredness and comprehensive approach. Conclusion. Final-year medical students at the beginning of their family medicine clerkship understand some of the dimensions of family medicine rather well, but they are not aware of some important competences of family doctors. ere is a necessity to teach students about speci c problem solving skills and the importance of balance between the health needs of an individual patient and the community.

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“…We have reported previously that students from the University of Split, School of Medicine have more knowledge and more positive attitudes on evidence-based medicine, compared to students from other medical schools in Croatia and in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina (19). Acta Medica Academica published a series of manuscripts in 2012, showing that the University of Split, School of Medicine is continuously improving its curriculum (20), placing the emphasis on clinical skills (21), and providing students with enhanced experience in the field of family medicine (22)(23)(24)(25). All this could be an advantage for prospective students.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%