Practically prepared? Pre-intern student views following an education package: a response.

Abstract

Practically prepared? Pre-intern student views following an education package: a response Naeem Dowlut School of Medicine, Barts and The London School of Medicine, London, UKI read with interest the paper authored by McKenzie and Mellis regarding the delivery and student feedback of an educational package, as part of the pre-internship module, designed to improve clinical skills, including procedural skills, of final-year medical students.1 The educational package was delivered prior to students commencing their clinical attachment component of the module and consisted of didactic-, group-, and case-based teaching sessions. Given the significant improvements in the self-reported confidence of students following the pre-internship module, and from my own experience, I agree with the authors that an intensive educational program is highly valuable at improving the skills and confidence of students prior to commencing clinical practice.In the UK, the General Medical Council requires UK medical schools to integrate “student assistantships” into the final year of medical school, before the medical student transitions into a practicing first-year postgraduate doctor (“Foundation Year 1”or “F1”).2 Depending on the medical school, the student assistantship is of varying length and is intended to closely integrate students into the health care team so that they may obtain more practical experience of a newly qualified doctor’s role. Duringthis assistantship, students should perform a diverse set of supervised practical procedures on patients, ranging from measurement of body temperature to catheterization and skin suturing.2 It has been shown that student assistantship model does improve the student’s preparedness for clinical practice.3,4View the original paper by McKenzie and Mellis.