Medical education
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Little is known about specific personal and professional factors influencing student distress. The authors conducted a comprehensive assessment of how learning environment, clinical rotation factors, workload, demographics and personal life events relate to student burnout. ⋯ Although a complex array of personal and professional factors influence student well-being, student satisfaction with specific characteristics of the learning environment appears to be a critical factor. Studies determining how to create a learning environment that cultivates student well-being are needed.
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The practice of having medical students see patients in a general practice setting, in their own consulting rooms, prior to the GP preceptor joining the consultation does not increase general practitioner (GP) consultation time. How do GPs meet the needs of both patient and student without extending consultation time? This study sought to quantify and compare GP consultation activities with and without students. ⋯ General practitioner activity in the consultation changes significantly when precepting a student; GPs spend longer exploring the history in order to unpack the student's clinical reasoning, verify the patient's story and resynthesise the information. They spend less time on examination, management and clerical activities and presumably delegate or defer these activities. Conclusions This organising of clinical activities in order to meet the needs of both patient and student is likely to require different processing skills to solo consulting.
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Communication skills training in undergraduate medical education is considered to play an important role in medical students' formation of their professional identity. This qualitative study explores Year 1 students' perceptions of their identities when practising communication skills with real patients. ⋯ Students' perceptions challenge educational goals, suggesting that there is limited potential for the formation of professional identity through early training. Teacher-doctors must acknowledge how students' low levels of clinical competence and patients' behaviour complicate students' identity formation.