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. 2004 Oct 2;329(7469):770-3.
doi: 10.1136/bmj.329.7469.770.

The hidden curriculum in undergraduate medical education: qualitative study of medical students' perceptions of teaching

Heidi Lempp  1 , Clive Seale
Affiliations

The hidden curriculum in undergraduate medical education: qualitative study of medical students' perceptions of teaching

Heidi Lempp et al. BMJ. .

Abstract

Objective: To study medical students' views about the quality of the teaching they receive during their undergraduate training, especially in terms of the hidden curriculum.

Design: Semistructured interviews with individual students.

Setting: One medical school in the United Kingdom.

Participants: 36 undergraduate medical students, across all stages of their training, selected by random and quota sampling, stratified by sex and ethnicity, with the whole medical school population as a sampling frame.

Main outcome measures: Medical students' experiences and perceptions of the quality of teaching received during their undergraduate training.

Results: Students reported many examples of positive role models and effective, approachable teachers, with valued characteristics perceived according to traditional gendered stereotypes. They also described a hierarchical and competitive atmosphere in the medical school, in which haphazard instruction and teaching by humiliation occur, especially during the clinical training years.

Conclusions: Following on from the recent reforms of the manifest curriculum, the hidden curriculum now needs attention to produce the necessary fundamental changes in the culture of undergraduate medical education.

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