title: Student perceptions of the care of children: impacts of pre-clerkship pediatric and primary care clinical teaching.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Pediatric clinical skills teaching sessions provide an early opportunity for students to be exposed to the medical care of children. This report describes second and third year medical students' perceptions of and attitudes towards working with children before and after the pediatric clinical skills teaching sessions, and the experiences of those students precepted by pediatricians only compared to those students working with a combination of pediatricians and family physicians.
  
  
  METHODS
  A 13 question survey was voluntarily completed before and after teaching sessions. Written reflective assignments were qualitatively analyzed for key themes. Response rate averaged 68% with class sizes of 84 and 85 students.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Students' perceptions of the care of children were generally very positive. Some differences were found based on gender, phase of study and prior clinical exposure to pediatric care. Pre and post responses were similar, regardless of preceptor specialty. Students with family physician preceptors identified the themes of prevention, health promotion and multidisciplinary care in their reflections.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Students had already formed positive attitudes toward the medical care of children and intended to care for children in their future practice. Further research is needed into the effects of pre-clerkship experiences in the care of children on choice of medical specialty.
authors.affiliation: Department of Academic Family Medicine, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan, Canada.
authors.forename: Beverley
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Karras
authors.affiliation: Department of Family Medicine, University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
authors.forename: Saumya
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Selvaraj
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan, Canada.
authors.forename: Athena
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: McConnell
authors.affiliation: Department of Academic Family Medicine, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan, Canada.
authors.forename: Deirdre
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Andres
authors.affiliation: College of Medicine, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan, Canada.
authors.forename: Krista
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Trinder
authors.affiliation: Department of Academic Family Medicine, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan, Canada.
authors.forename: Meredith
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: McKague