Toward full student engagement in pre-clerkship training.

Abstract

to design and deliver practical and interactive sessions, supervised by senior doctors. Topics are selected by the breakfast club team based on the fifth-year curriculum, including important core topics such as sepsis, and those which students find challenging such as managing agitated patients. Teaching methods range from group tutorials and case discussions to practical skill demonstrations and scenarios. Breakfast is provided for everyone. In response to student feedback, the breakfast club now serves all fourth and fifth-year students at this hospital, with an average group size of 16 students. To improve accessibility, a free coach service is provided for students to and from their residential areas. What lessons were learned? The breakfast club is a well-attended, popular education initiative, aiming to augment students’ clinical experience across a range of placements. Students benefit from regular relevant practical learning, with near-peer teaching from doctors who can relate to student learning needs. When foundation doctors discuss cases that they struggled with, reflecting on challenges and learning points, this has proved particularly popular with students. When asked to rate relevance and give an overall evaluation of breakfast club sessions this academic year, students allocated average scores of 4.13 and 4.08 out of 5, respectively. In addition to student feedback, quality is monitored by the senior doctors supervising the sessions. Students have demonstrated a willingness to attend an hour earlier than their allocated placement start time, when offered a learning opportunity that is accessible, consistently relevant, with provision made for transport and food. For this hospital it has been an efficient and cost-effective method of delivering education. In addition, the breakfast club benefits junior doctors, who gain supervised and supported teaching experience, direct supervisor feedback, e-portfolio teaching evidence and collated quantitative and qualitative student feedback. Many junior doctors who initially engaged with medical education through the breakfast club, have become more heavily involved in student education, forming closer links with students on placements and taking a more direct role in student supervision. The Pinderfields breakfast club offers additional learning opportunities for students across fourth and fifth-year clinical placements, is popular with students, and won a Clinical Teaching Excellence Award from the University of Leeds in 2012. This simple and reproducible model has been replicated in several hospitals across Yorkshire. We would encourage all hospitals to explore a similar model to improve their students’ training experience.