Genital examination training: assessing the effectiveness of an integrated female and male teaching programme.

Lynn Mcbain,Kath Hoare,Susan Pullon,Sue Garrett

doi:10.1186/s12909-016-0822-y

Abstract

BackgroundLearning to undertake intimate female and male examinations is an important part of medical student training but opportunities to participate in practical, supervised learning in a safe environment can be limited. A collaborative, integrated training programme to provide such learning was developed by two university teaching departments and a specialist sexual health service, utilising teaching associates trained for intimate examinations in a simulated clinical educational setting. The objective of this research was to determine changes in senior medical students’ self- reported experience and confidence in performing male and female genital examinations, before and after participating in a new clinical teaching programme.MethodsA quasi-experimental mixed methods design, using pre and post programme questionnaires and focus groups, was used to assess the effectiveness of the programme.ResultsThe students reported greatly improved skill, confidence and comfort levels for both male and female genital examination following the teaching programme. Skill, confidence and comfort regarding male examinations were rated particularly low on the pre-teaching programme self- assessment, but post-programme was rated at similar levels to the female examination.ConclusionsThis integrated female–male teaching programme (utilising trained teaching associates as simulated patients in a supervised clinical teaching environment) was successful in increasing senior medical students’ skills and levels of confidence in performing genital examinations. There were differences between female and male medical students in their learning. Suggestions for improvement included providing more detailed instruction to some clinical supervisors about their facilitation role in the session.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12909-016-0822-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Highlights

Learning to undertake intimate female and male examinations is an important part of medical student training but opportunities to participate in practical, supervised learning in a safe environment can be limited
There has been a shift towards the use of paid, trained gynaecological teaching associates (GTAs) especially for learning to examine the female pelvis [12]
The programme The genital examination teaching programme consists of an introductory session followed by a practical session several days later for all 5th year medical students

Summary

Introduction

Learning to undertake intimate female and male examinations is an important part of medical student training but opportunities to participate in practical, supervised learning in a safe environment can be limited. The objective of this research was to determine changes in senior medical students’ self- reported experience and confidence in performing male and female genital examinations, before and after participating in a new clinical teaching programme. New teaching methods are continuously being explored to decrease student anxiety levels and to provide a safe environment for students to improve performance prior to practicing these examinations on McBain et al BMC Medical Education (2016) 16:299 patients in clinical settings. There have been few studies investigating the effectiveness of female and male genital examination training using Teaching Associates (TAs) undertaken as part of the same programme [8, 13]

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Discussion

Conclusion