Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2020 Dec 3;20(Suppl 2):463.
doi: 10.1186/s12909-020-02283-2.

Key tips for teaching in the clinical setting

Annette Burgess  1   2 , Christie van Diggele  3   4 , Chris Roberts  5   3 , Craig Mellis  6
Affiliations
Review

Key tips for teaching in the clinical setting

Annette Burgess et al. BMC Med Educ. .

Abstract

Teaching with real patients in the clinical setting lies at the heart of health professional education, providing an essential component to clinical training. This is true of all the health disciplines - particularly medicine, nursing, dentistry, physiotherapy, and dietetics. Clinical tutorials orientate students to the culture and social aspects of the healthcare environment, and shape their professional values as they prepare for practice. These patient-based tutorials introduce students to the clinical environment in a supervised and structured manner, providing opportunities to participate in communication skills, history taking, physical examination, clinical reasoning, diagnosis and management. It is only through participation that new practices are learnt, and progressively, new tasks are undertaken. The aim of this paper is to provide health professional students and early career health professionals involved in peer and near peer teaching, with an overview of approaches and key tips for teaching in the clinical setting. Although there are many competencies developed by students in the clinical setting, our tips for teaching focus on the domains of medical knowledge, interpersonal and communication skills, and professionalism.

Keywords: Bedside teaching; Clinical reasoning; Clinical teaching; Clinical tutorials; Near-peer teaching; Peer-peer teaching; Role modelling.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no competing interests to declare.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Ease and difficulty of teaching, learning and assessing knowledge, skills and attitude
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
The SNAPPS model [30]
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Three tips for promoting clinical reasoning
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Sinclair S. Making doctors: an institutional apprenticeship. Oxford: Berg; 1997.
    1. Morris C. Replacing ‘the firm’: re-imagining clinical placements as time spent in communities of practice. In: Cook V, Daly C, Newman M, editors. Work based learning in clinical settings – insights from socio-cultural perspectives. Oxford: Radcliffe Medical; 2012.
    1. Lave J, Wenger E. Situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1991.
    1. Blakey A. Cultivating student thinking and values in medical education: what teachers do, how they do it and who they are. Doctoral dissertation: University of Otago, Dunedin NZ; 2016.
    1. Dornan T, Tan N, Boshuizen H, Gick R, Isba R, Mann K, et al. How and what do medical students learn in clerkships? Experience based learning (ExBL) Adv Health Sci Educ. 2014;19(5):721–749. doi: 10.1007/s10459-014-9501-0. - DOI - PubMed