title: Effect of ambulatory medicine tutorial on clinical performance of 5th year medical students.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The present study provided a group learning activity called "Ambulatory Medicine Tutorial-AMT" for 5th year medical students in order to facilitate learning experience at ambulatory setting and to improve medical students' clinical performance. This research aimed specifically to study the effect of AMT.
  
  
  METHODS
  Two groups of twenty 5th-year medical students were enrolled during their ambulatory medicine blocks. Each medical student was assigned to have 8 ambulatory sessions. AMT was assigned to one group while the other group only used conventional learning activity. At the end of the present study, total internal medicine scores, patient satisfaction surveys, and data on average time spent on each clinical encounter were collected and compared.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The AMT group received a higher total internal medicine score as compared to the conventional group (76.2 +/- 3.6 vs. 72.9 +/- 2.8, p = 0.003). The AMT group could reduce average time spent on each clinical encounter within their first-6 ambulatory sessions while the conventional group could acquire the same skill later in their last 2 ambulatory sessions. There was no significant difference found on comparing patient satisfaction scores between the 2 groups.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  AMT helped improving medical students' outcomes as shown from higher total internal medicine score as well as quicker improvement during real-life clinical encounters, AMT could be a good alternative learning activity for medical students at ambulatory setting.
authors.affiliation: Division of Ambulatory Medicine, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand. pochamana.phi@mahidol.ac.th
authors.forename: Pochamana
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Phisalprapa
authors.forename: Denla
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Pandejpong
mesh_terms: D000553:Ambulatory Care; D002983:Clinical Competence; D004501:Education, Medical / Q000379:methods*; D007388:Internal Medicine / Q000193:education*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires