Usefulness of Psychiatric Grand Rounds for Medical Student Education

Abstract

The author studies medical students' perception of the educational value of weekly psychiatric grand rounds and attempts to clarify whether their specific needs should be considered in planning the program. Student and non-student responses to four relevant items on a 16-item questionnaire were compared to identify differences in the perceptions of educational quality, degree to which objectives were met, current relevance, and future usefulness of content as reference tool. The author compared approximately 270 general audience responses and 83 student responses to the selected items for 19 grand round presentations in the last academic year. Overall, both groups rated the educational quality of the presentations and the degree to which the speakers achieved their stated objectives equally. The two groups differed, however, on the relevance of the topics and the potential value of the content for future use. The two groups rated the educational quality of the presentations equally favorably despite differences in the perceived current relevance and future value, which suggests that there is no significant need for program change.