Novice students navigating the clinical environment in an early medical clerkship

Abstract

Context: The black box that is student learning in clinical environments is an ongoing research project. Our previous research showed that despite the time that students are given to learn with, about and from patients, some lack confidence for those encounters and see few patients. The study reported here investigated individual and environmental factors affecting medical students' self-directed learning time in hospital. Methods: We studied second year students in the four-year postgraduate Melbourne Medical School programme as they undertook the first of their four 9-week hospital placements in medical wards. Each week approximately 10 hours of structured teaching is offered; the remainin..