Abstract
BackgroundPhysical examination (PE) is an essential clinical skill and a central part of a physician’s daily activity. Teaching of PE has been integrated into medical school by many clinical disciplines with respective specific examination procedures. For instance, PE teaching in general practice may include a full-body examination approach. Studies show that PE-skills of medical students often need enhancement. The aim of this article was to scope the literature regarding the teaching and research of PE within general practice during undergraduate medical education. We evaluated a wide breadth of literature relating to the content, study design, country of research institution and year of publication.MethodsLiterature search in Medline along the PRISMA-P protocol was performed by search syntax (“physical examination” AND “medical education” AND “undergraduate” AND general practice) considering Medline MeSH (Medical Subject Heading)-Terms and Medline search term tree structure. Independent title, abstract and full-text screening with defined inclusion and exclusion criteria was performed. Full texts were analyzed by publication year, country of origin, study design and content (by categorizing articles along their main topic according to qualitative content analysis of Mayring).ResultsOne-hundred seven articles were included. The annual number of publications ranged from 4 to 14 and had a slightly rising trend since 2000. Nearly half of the publications originated from the United States (n = 54), 33 from Canada and the United Kingdom. Overall, intervention studies represented the largest group (n = 60, including uncontrolled and controlled studies, randomized and non-randomized), followed by cross-sectional studies (n = 29). The 117 studies could be assigned to five categories “teaching methods (n = 53)”, “teaching quality (n = 33)”, “performance evaluation and examination formats (n=19)”, “students’ views (n = 8)” and “patients’ and standardized patients’ views (n=4)”.ConclusionsThe present work shows a wide spectrum of teaching and research activities and a certain level of evidence for the effectiveness of individual teaching methods. It can be used as orientation and impulse generator for the further development of medical education in the field of PE.
Highlights
Physical examination (PE) is an essential clinical skill and a central part of a physician’s daily activity
Teaching of PE has been integrated into medical school by many clinical disciplines with respective specific examination procedures
The Institute of General Practice and Interprofessional Care of the University of Tuebingen has been developing a PE course that focuses on teaching a head-to-toe examination (HTTE) in small groups with their third-year medical students and standardized patients
Summary
Physical examination (PE) is an essential clinical skill and a central part of a physician’s daily activity. There is no evidence favoring one approach With this background, the Institute of General Practice and Interprofessional Care of the University of Tuebingen has been developing a PE course that focuses on teaching a head-to-toe examination (HTTE) in small groups with their third-year medical students and standardized patients. The Institute of General Practice and Interprofessional Care of the University of Tuebingen has been developing a PE course that focuses on teaching a head-to-toe examination (HTTE) in small groups with their third-year medical students and standardized patients This HTTE suggests a scheme that focuses on minimising re-positioning of the person examined and considers core examination steps suggested by Gowda et al [10, 13]. Development and implementation of this course [13] was further to a scope of the literature of PE [17]
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