title: What educational resources are medical students using for personal study during primary care attachments?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Today's medical students have grown up in a technological world, with access to a wide variety of educational resources for their personal study. Although there is some evidence from the USA that students prefer the internet to textbooks, there is little evidence of UK students' preferences, particularly during their primary care attachments.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To identify what educational resources medical students are using for their personal study during primary care attachments and why they make these choices.
  
  
  METHODS
  We held two focus groups, one with five, and one with seven fifth-year UK medical students after their primary care attachment. We analysed the transcripts using thematic analysis to identify the educational resources used, and identified themes to describe why the students made these choices.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Textbooks remain students' resource of choice for personal study. The most popular textbook was The Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine and internet sites were Google and GP Notebook. The choice of resource was influenced by convenience, purpose, recommendation, exam focus, reliability and learning styles. Two further overarching themes influencing their choices were the broad nature of general practice and the use of GP tutors as an important learning resource.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In contrast to the USA, textbooks remain the most popular resource for these UK students. Students felt that the style of learning within general practice was fundamentally different to other specialities due to the breadth of the subject matter and this influenced the resources used. This research could help inform the development of educational resources tailored to the learners, and provides further evidence for the need to develop a more structured curriculum for students in primary care. Further research could explore the ideal role of GP tutors.
authors.affiliation: Department of Primary Care and Public Health, Imperial College London, 41 Arlington Avenue, London N1 7BE, UK. catherinebaudains@doctors.org.uk.
authors.forename: Catherine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Baudains
authors.forename: Emma
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Metters
authors.forename: Graham
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Easton
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Booton
mesh_terms: D004503:Education, Medical, Graduate / Q000379:methods*; D017144:Focus Groups; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D007858:Learning; D058007:Physicians, Primary Care / Q000193:education*; D013663:Teaching; D013782:Textbooks as Topic; D006113:United Kingdom