ABSTRACT
This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. Introduction After graduating from medical school, all UK based doctors enter the Foundation Programme. There is on-going evidence, both anecdotally and published, that final year medical students continue to feel unprepared about starting work. We thus designed a one-day course aiming to improve these students' preparedness and anxiety levels. Methods Pre-course material was provided to the students with information on the skills that were going to be explored in the course. After an initial introduction, there was an interactive demonstration to refresh the students' knowledge on assessment of an unwell patient using the recognised ABCDE approach- Airway; Breathing; Circulation; Disability; Exposure . Thereafter, the students were split into 10 groups of 3 and 4 and rotated around 10 different stations. Each station was 40 minutes long and breaks were interspersed amongst the teaching to ensure that concentration was maintained. The emphasis was on near-peer teaching with guidance from a recently qualified doctor. Feedback was requested immediately post-course and three months afterwards. Results and Feedback The immediate feedback was very positive with the overall quality rated at 3.93/4. Regarding the 3 month feedback, there was an average reduction in anxiety levels by 18.3% (p<0.0001) and improvement in perceived preparedness levels by 24.7% (p<0.0001). All students agreed that the course will help them in preparing to become a foundation doctor and that similar courses should be offered to all final year students. Conclusions Practical courses focusing on preparedness can provide a unique opportunity for collaborative training by universities and foundation trusts. These courses are well evaluated and are perceived to improve anxiety and preparedness levels.
