[Student education in a laboratory for general practice skills]

Abstract

Clinical skills, like questioning and examining a patient, are developed gradually throughout the years of medical training. Basic skills should be mastered on graduation, but the teaching of skills in most medical schools is not systematic. We evaluated a pilot teaching project in a general practice (GP) skills laboratory. Students were randomised to an intervention group and a control group. Teaching was performed in small groups of one GP instructor and six students and consisted of four weekly three-hour sessions. For the control group, teaching was delayed until after evaluation. Evaluation of practical skills and communication skills was made with the students in random order by GP evaluators who did not know about the randomisation procedure. Each skill was scored as satisfactory or not satisfactory for each of five procedural elements. 56 fourth-year medical students volunteered. Evaluation was performed for 19 (68%) students in the training group and 18 (64%) in the control group. The training group performed better on practical skills, average score 9.7 (95% confidence interval 7.4 to 12.1) vs. 5.5 (3.2 to 7.8), (p = 0.01). There was no significant difference for communication skills, 7.7 (5.6 to 9.8) vs. 6.7 (4.6 to 8.7). Teaching clinical skills in a general practice skills laboratory is feasible. Practical skills may improve rapidly, at least for short-time performance, while our brief teaching in communication skills was not proved to be effective.