Experiences of hospital rotation from family medicine residents’ points of view an empirical holistic study

Abstract

Objective Trainees or medical residents’ experiences of hospital rotations and training have not been sufficiently studied. More empirical holistic studies of experiences of General Practice/Family Medicine (GP/FM) residents in Sweden are needed. The purpose of this study was to describe experiences of hospital rotation during residency. Design Empirical-holistic study. Setting GP/FM residents were invited by email to participate in the study. They could describe their experiences anonymously by answering two questions via an esMaker internet survey. Analyses of the responses were carried out with content analysis as the analytical methodology. Both manifest and latent responses were analyzed. Subjects Fifty-nine GP/FM residents participated in the study. Main Outcome Measure The results identified four main topics: structure, resources, effects, and constructive supervision. Results GP/FM residents experienced hospital rotations as effective when there was a structured schedule and adequate time allotted for introduction and meeting patients. Hospital rotations that lacked, or had unstructured, supervision caused uncertainty and insecurity, which led to rotations being experienced as less beneficial, which was, from a GP/FM perspective, not constructive. Conclusion The study suggests that family medicine residents required a structured and planned schedule during hospital rotations. This study may contribute to increased quality of hospital rotations during residency as a family physician.