Abstract

HENRIQUES, Luís; SALGUEIRA, Ana; SOUSA, Nuno  and  COSTA, Manuel J.. The experience of graduate entry students in the transition to the clinical phase: a case study. FEM (Ed. impresa) [online]. 2014, vol.17, n.2, pp.105-113. ISSN 2014-9840.  https://dx.doi.org/10.4321/S2014-98322014000200008.

Introduction. Internationally, medical schools have been offering more fast-track undergraduate medical degree to graduate applicants. This case study aims to understand graduate entry students' experience in medical schools, namely to identify factors that condition their transition to the clinical training in hospitals. Subjects and methods. Participants are medical graduate students from the University of Minho in Portugal (n = 5) going through the transition from a pre-clinical to a clinical part of a 4 year graduate entry curriculum. A focus group was conducted at the end of the first clinical course. The discussion was transcribed and analyzed using Grounded-Theory principles. Results.Participants described they were comfortable with contacting patients, and that they applied study skills developed prior to entry medical school to their learning. The main difficulties pointed out their were the first contact with death and disease in the hospital environment, the large amount of content to be learned before starting clinical training, and the transfer of knowledge to clinical practice. Conclusions. This case study revealed that the main difficulties presented by medical graduate-entry students were related to the first contacts with patients and the practical application of a huge amount of knowledge, learned during the pre-clinical part of the curriculum, to the clinical practice. These difficulties could be attenuated by including more contact with patients and clinical practice during the pre-clinical part of the course.

Keywords : Clinical clerkship; Curriculum; Focus groups; Health knowledge; Medical education; Perception.

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