Evaluations of medical students' clinical experiences in a family medicine clerkship: differences in patient encounters by disease severity in different clerkship sites.
OBJECTIVE
Evaluation of medical students'clinical encounters is an essential component of optimizing their educational experience. In this study, we collected data on the diagnoses and disease severity in student-patient encounters at different family medicine clerkship sites.


METHODS
Participants were 582 third-year medical students who completed a total of 7,515 specially designed patient encounter cards in a 6-week family medicine clerkship atfive training sites over 3 years.


RESULTS
Variation was found in the average number of encounters in different clerkship sites. The findings for three frequently encountered diseases (essential hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and upper respiratory infection) showed significant differences in the proportions of patients at different stages of the disease in different clerkship sites.


CONCLUSIONS
Students at different clerkship sites experience different numbers of encounters with patients and significant variation in the illness severity of patients seen in those encounters.
Markham
Fred W
FW
Department of Family Medicine, Jefferson Medical College, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA 19107, USA. fred.markham@mail.tju.edu
Rattner
Susan
S
Hojat
Mohammadreza
M
Louis
Daniel Z
DZ
Rabinowitz
Carol
C
Gonnella
Joseph S
JS
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002982:Clinical Clerkship / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D003625:Data Collection; D003933:Diagnosis; D003953:Diagnosis-Related Groups / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005194:Family Practice / Q000193:education* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D020380:Needs Assessment; D015143:Philadelphia; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D015397:Program Evaluation; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013337:Students, Medical / Q000523:psychology*