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Biomedical subjects

Gitte Wichmann-Hansen

Publications and source records attributed to Gitte Wichmann-Hansen.

4 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

[Time study: how do students spend their time during clerkship?].

INTRODUCTION: The purpose of this study was to do a quantitative description of how medical students spend their time during their clerkship in the eighth semester of study. We examined to what degree students have the possibility to learn both from the doctors and other staff and through active participation in daily work routines. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: Time registration was carried out through observation of six medical students spread over 32 observation days, corresponding to 6,674 minutes. The observations cover surgical and medical clerkships in two hospitals in Aarhus, Denmark. RESULTS: The study revealed that the students (1) were present in the clinic about four hours a day; (2) spent about two-thirds of their time with doctors; (3) received guidance to a limited degree when they spent time with doctors; (4) carried out specific and visible actions in relation to patients to a limited degree; (5) practically did not co-operate with the nursing staff. CONCLUSION: Recent learning theories recommend that students should work actively on a subject or a task and that they should receive guidance to ensure their reflection on the tasks performed. We observed that students have plenty of opportunity to learn through watching experienced practitioners. However, the limited amount of guidance and the students' role as observers indicate that the learning potential of being with doctors and patients is not being exploited sufficiently.

Clinical Clerkship↗
PubMed2006

Complex perspectives on learning objectives: stakeholders' beliefs about core objectives based on focus group interviews.

OBJECTIVE: To understand core curriculum design and involvement of stakeholders. METHODS: Twelve homogeneous focus group interviews with a total of 88 students, house officers, senior doctors and nurses concerning an undergraduate emergency medicine curriculum. Following content coding of transcripts, we analysed by condensation, categorisation and qualitative content analyses. RESULTS: The focus group participants gave a range of reasons for defining objectives or outcomes. They found their involvement in the process essential. Their argumentation and beliefs differed significantly, revealing 2 opposite perspectives: objectives as context-free theory-based rules versus objectives as personal practice-based guidelines. The students favoured theory-based objectives, which should be defined by experts conclusively as minimum levels and checklists. The senior doctors preferred practice-based objectives, which should be decided in a collaborative, local, continuous process, and should be expressed as ideals and expectations. The house officers held both perspectives. Adding to complexity, participants also interpreted competence inconsistently and mixed concepts such as knowledge, observation, supervision, experience and expertise. DISCUSSION: Participating novices' perspectives on objectives differed completely from expertise level participants. These differences in perspectives should not be underestimated, as they can lead easily to misunderstandings among stakeholders, or between stakeholders, educational leaders and curriculum designers. We recommend that concepts are discussed with stakeholders in order to reach a common understanding and point of departure for discussing outcomes. Differences in perspectives, in our opinion, need to be recognised, respected and incorporated into the curriculum design process.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗