Aimsof this 2-staged study were to assess knowledge gain of medical students following an individual episode of patient-centred teaching. Participant satisfaction was also assessed.BackgroundThe education of medical students is an important role for trained medics using adabtable teaching methods, appropriate to the demands of students and medical universities. Delivery of patient-centred teaching in UK is ad-hoc, minimal and not standardised. However, medical education still tends to be delivered in the in-patient environment, where there is little supervision and students often have to identify patients on their own. Paucity exists in the evidence of whether bedside teaching assists in knowledge gain.MethodIn Derby, a Patient-centred clinic was developed in 2008. We conducted a pre-intervention/post-intervention comparison study to measure the knowledge gained during a teaching session. Participants were medical students from University of Nottingham, and in-patients at the Unit. Following this, standards were set and assessing questions were changed to multiple choice style questions in January 2010.Resultsshow that there is an immediate knowledge gain, of an average of 22%. Students are satisfied with this method of teaching and patients have felt that their input has been valued. The second part of the study has confirmed these findings.ConclusionsThe study demonstrates usefulness of patient-centred education in improving clinical knowledge. Adoption of this form of teaching will benefit not only medical students in their psychiatry placement in Derby, but also the wider medical student population. This method can also be implemented in other acute medical specialties.
Innovative methods in teaching psychiatry to medical students
