the quality of medical students teaching is something many of us complain about and there is nothing we can do about it. at least not until we are ourselves teachers. but it is could be such a great experience, and all it requires is some thought and a little preparation. teachers like debbie amott at ballarat base and danni bao at the kids prove that it is possible to make medical students love you (although being good looking helps too, i don't deny). here are some tips to keep in mind:
1. turn up. on time.
2. planning is the key to success. simple things such as rounding up a few patients before hand goes a long way.
3. free coffee not only make us love you, it also means we are awake enough to listen.
4. teach us things that are actually important, not just interesting. make sure your monologue has a point.
5. finally, pay the tutors, give them a medal, add FMS after their names (Friends of Medical Students). Whatever. Just recognise them for the top blokes and sheilas they are.
here are a few of tute structures that i think should be adopted immediately:
a. history taking: line up as many patients as there are students. give us half an hour each with the patient to interview and write up. then listen while we give five minute presentations, paying attention to the opening sentence, our proposed list of issues and plan; NOT the patient's list of thirty drugs and how we mispronounce them. this will pay back big time we become interns and ring you at the middle of the night. peer questions are gold. for a bit of variety, try focused interviews such as psychosocial history or lifestyle and ADLs. a tute with six to eight students will take about an hour and half.
b. short cases: pair us up and send each pair to do a short case. one student will examine while the other observes. fifteen minutes later, get the examiner to present his/her findings, and the observer to comment on the fluidity, patient manner and differential dx. not only do we learn to do systems examinations this way, we actually see signs properly, and get to clarify them with you instead of guessing. this tute takes about an hour.
c. disease presentations: divide the specialty into core conditions, and assign one to each student. for example, in respiratory disease, asthma, COAD, DILD, pneumonia, lung cancer, infections, PE, etc. ten minute presentations and one page handouts essential. this will become the bible come SWOT vac. repeat for other specialties. each tute may take an hour and half.
long case case are useful, but they take a loooooong time and often there aren't that many patients suitable for long cases. the traditional bedside tutes are next to useless - you never observe a sign properly when there are eight of you trying to have a go, and i'm sure the patient feels terribly like a guinea pig. what about dignity? what about privacy? out the window they go. and this process certainly doesn't endear them to our presence.
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