The relationship between medical student learning opportunities and preparedness for practice: a questionnaire study

Abstract

BackgroundAlongside providing a knowledge base and practical skills, undergraduate medical education must prepare graduates to immediately begin practice as qualified doctors. A significant challenge is to provide safe learning opportunities that will optimise students’ preparedness to start work. This study examined UK graduates’ preparedness for clinical practice, and their exposure to real-life and simulated immediate care scenarios during final year placements.MethodA questionnaire measuring students’ perceived preparedness, and their exposure to immediate care scenarios, was distributed to all new Foundation Year 1 doctors (F1s) attending an induction session in one region of the UK.Results356 F1s responded to the questionnaire (91% response rate; 89% of cohort) and data from 344 graduates of UK medical schools were analysed. Respondents were generally prepared for practice, but many reported few ‘hands-on’ experiences of providing immediate care during final year placements (a median of 1–2 experiences).Those who had 1–2 experiences reported no greater preparedness for acute management than those reporting no experience. Several exposures are necessary for a significant increase in perceived preparedness. Real-life experience was a better predictor of preparedness than simulated practice.ConclusionsGaps still remain in medical students’ acute care experience, with a direct relationship to their perceived preparedness. The format and facilitation of placements may need to be addressed in order to enhance the quality of experience during final year.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1472-6920-14-223) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Preparedness for practice: the perceptions of graduates of a regional clinical school

“…This study was conducted at a time of increasing national 9 and international 1 , 3 , 15 ‐ 17 focus on the preparedness of medical graduates for practice. The General Medical Council (UK) has systematically examined the question over the past decade, and recently reported that one in ten graduates felt poorly prepared for entering medical practice 1 , 18 .…”

“…This study is also limited by its being a single site study in a regional university with small graduate numbers, meaning that its results may not be generalisable to other medical schools. Respondents' interpretation of what constitutes preparedness for each item may also have varied, given that there were no objective criteria for graduates to benchmark their own preparedness 1 , 15 . The judgements of graduates cannot be assumed to be equivalent, although it is likely that each graduate applied similar judgements to each of the 44 items.…”

“…Respondents' interpretation of what constitutes preparedness for each item may also have varied, given that there were no objective criteria for graduates to benchmark their own preparedness. 1, 15 The judgements of graduates cannot be assumed to be equivalent, although it is likely that each graduate applied similar judgements to each of the 44 items.…”

A prospective survey of chiropractic student experiences with pediatric care and variability of case mix while on clinical placement in Rarotonga

“…This survey instrument was developed by the lead researcher, with the items based on previous surveys in the published literature, including a cross-sectional survey about the use of chiropractic technique pediatric patients 10 as well as surveys of preparedness for practice in medical students. 11,12 The pre-and postplacement surveys on preparedness were from those developed by the lead author for a retrospective survey of 275 chiropractic students across 4 chiropractic institutions. 13 This survey content was verified via an expert panel of pediatric chiropractors and then pilot tested on 3 newly graduated chiropractic students for clarity.…”

Social learning in a longitudinal integrated clinical placement

“…Scholars across many disciplines have examined the affordances of student learning in the context of the environment in which they eventually practice as a professional. There is evidence that work related learning has a positive influence on student learning outcomes, and their readiness for work or preparedness for practice (Warren 2012;Burford et al 2014;Morrow et al 2012;Svirko et al 2014). Medical students' preparedness for practice as junior doctors can be improved by prior experiential, work-based learning in clinical practice during their medical programme (Brennan et al 2010).…”