Knowledge Acquired by Laboratory Science Students During a Clinical Clerkship in a Department of General Medicine

• Published in: Kita Kantō igaku (The Kitakanto Medical Journal) Vol. 52; no. 5; pp. 369 - 375
• Main Authors: Sakamoto, Hironosuke, Fujita, Kin-ichi, Kanda, Tsugiyasu, Sawada, Yoshie, Sakuraya, Masataka, Itani, Yasutaka, Sato, Masamichi, Hoshino, Ayami, Tamura, Jun-ichi, Kurashige, Satonori
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English; Japanese
• Published: The Kitakanto Medical Society 2002
• Subjects: clinical clerkship; communication skills; general medicine; medical education; medical laboratory technologist
• DOI: 10.2974/kmj.52.369
• ISSN: 1343-2826

Background and Objectives : Student reports were qualitatively reviewed to determine what laboratory science students had learned during a clinical clerkship at a general medicine clinic. Subjects & Methods : Seventy-six 4th-year laboratory science students participated in a clinical clerkship at the Primary Care Unit of Gunma University Hospital between 2000 and 2001 (38 students in 2000, and 38 students in 2001). Each student observed medical interviews and physical examinations of outpatients performed by a primary care physician. The student was then asked to write a report on three topics : “case record/laboratory test plans”, “the roles of a medical laboratory technologist in future medical care”, and “the student's dream.” Three teaching staff members independently reviewed the 76 reports using a qualitative approach. Results : The mean scores for the case record/laboratory test plan reports were the same for the students in 2000 and the students in 2001. The score of the female students were 0.9 points higher than those of the males in 2001. A total of 13 items in 3 categories were identified in the reports as the roles of medical laboratory technologists in future medical care. The 5 most common items were “increasing contact with patients” (61% of students), “working outside the laboratory”(47%), “participating in team medical care”(42%), “providing value-added data”(37%), and “analyzing rapidly and precisely”(34%) in 2000, and “increasing contact with patients”(71%), “sampling and informing patients of laboratory tests”(66%), “working outside the laboratory”(50%), “participating in team medical care”(24%), and “providing value-added data”(18%) in 2001. Approximately 90% of the students in both years wished to become a medical laboratory technologist. The majority of the male students (60%) in 2000 wished to work in a research laboratory, while most female students (76%) wished to work in a hospital laboratory. Conclusions : The above results indicate that students learned the importance of “contact with patients”, “expanding occupational territories”, and “team medical care” for future medical laboratory technologists and that a clinical clerkship in a general medicine clinic is extremely effective for teaching medical communication skills to laboratory science students.