Teaching Practical and Clinical Skills

Abstract

In this chapter we plan to look at ways of improving your clinical teaching. It is unlikely that you will be able to obtain specific help in this matter as training courses in clinical teaching appear to be almost non-existent. It is a fact that clinical teaching is the most neglected of all areas of teaching. It is equally a fact that it is the area in which more deficiencies have been found than in any other. The conclusion of one extensive study was that ’many (clinical) teaching sessions, particularly ward rounds, were haphazard, mediocre and lacking in intellectual excitement’. In one study of medical schools in North America, it was stated that there were few students who could report having been monitored in the interview and physical examination of more than one or two patients and that a surprising number had been awarded their degree without ever having been properly supervised in the complete data-collecting process of even one patient! It is our experience, with notable exceptions, that a similar situation can be found in many medical schools in other parts of the world.