Students' perceptions of time spent during clinical rotations

Abstract

Some rotations during clinical education are characterizedby a high number of hours spent per week in thehospital because students panicipate in a hospital on-callsystem, i.e. hours beyond usual working hours, e.g. at night.However, students complain about spending too many hours inthe hospital on non-instructive activities. This study wasundertaken to investigate differences among rotations in timespent in hospital, in on-call hours, in self-study and in non-instructiveactivities and to investigate the relationship betweentime spent on the various activities and the overall effectivenessas perceived by students. A questionnaire was administered tostudents at the end of various clinical rotations. Rotations differconsiderably in time spent in hospital, on call (i.e. beyondusual working hours), on self-study and on non-instructiveactivities. In some rotations students report spending onaverage 18-20% of their time in the hospital on non-instructiveactivities. Furthermore, the numbers of hours spent inhospital do not correlate with the overall effectiveness asperceived by students, unless the numbers of hours spent innon-instructive activities are taken into account. The effectivenessof a rotation does not automatically improve if studentsspend more hours in hospital. The number of hours spent onnon-instructive activities should be reduced in some rotationsand should be kept as low as possible. Further research isneeded to find out which activities are perceived as non-instructive.