Recording Patient Encounters to Verify the Clinical Curriculum of a Family Medicine Clerkship

Abstract

The learning experience during a medical school clinical rotation is to a large extent shaped by students’ patient encounters. This paper reports on how a log system for recording these encounters can be used for both course planning and evaluation. Over the past five years, 960 third year students participating in a four-week family medicine clerkship at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School completed log forms based on their clinical encounters. These forms were then optically scanned and directly entered into a computerized data base. The data revealed that the most common medical problems encountered by our students in ambulatory settings were similar to those reported in the general family practice literature. The data also indicated differences among clerkship sites in terms of patient demographics and the most frequently reported diagnoses, with a great deal of consistency in the types of encounters from year to year. Information from the log forms has been used by clerkship faculty to develop end-of-rotation examinations, determine required readings, prioritize didactic topics, adjust curriculum content, and prepare support materials. Given the utility of the information obtained and the ease of use of optical mark encounters sheets, we recommended this system for other clerkships.