title: Learners' perspective: where and when pre-residency trainees learn more to achieve their core clinical competencies.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  While it is known that effective clinical education requires active involvement of its participants, regular feedback, communication skills and interprofessional training, limited studies have been conducted in Korea that demonstrate how pre-residency trainees acquire their core clinical skills. This is a cross-sectional study of interns and students across a third-tier university hospital in Korea to examine where and when they acquire core clinical skills.
  
  
  METHODS
  A total of 74 students and 91 interns were asked to participate in a closed-ended questionnaire, and 50 participants (20 students and 30 interns) were involved in semistructured individual interviews. The questionnaire was based on the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education core competencies.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The majority of core clinical skills were acquired during their rotations in emergency medicine, general surgery, and cardiothoracic surgery. The semistructured interviews revealed that these departments required their trainees to be highly involved and analytical, and participate in clinical discourse.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The common factor among the three departments is an environment in which trainees are highly involved in clinical duties, and are expected to make first-contact patient encounters, participate in clinical discourse, interpret investigative results and arrive at their own conclusions. Work-based learning appear to be key to the trends observed, and further study is warranted to determine whether these findings are indicative of true acquisition of clinical competence.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Humanities, Korea University College of Medicine, Korea University Medical Center, Seoul, Korea.|Department of Emergency Medicine, Korea University Medical Center, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Eusang
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-7725-7491
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ahn
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Humanities, Korea University College of Medicine, Korea University Medical Center, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Ducksun
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-2762-0026
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ahn
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Humanities, Korea University College of Medicine, Korea University Medical Center, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Young-Mee
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-4685-9465
authors.initials: YM
authors.lastname: Lee
mesh_terms: D002983:Clinical Competence; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003479:Curriculum; D006801:Humans; D007396:Internship and Residency; D007858:Learning; D018794:Problem-Based Learning; D056910:Republic of Korea; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: Education; Emergency medicine; Medical education; Pre-residency