ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES: This study explores how medical graduates and their workplace supervisors perceive the value of a structured clinical audit program (CAP) undertaken during medical school. METHODS: Medical students at the University of Notre Dame Fremantle complete a structured clinical audit program in their final year of medical school. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 Notre Dame graduates (who had all completed the CAP), and seven workplace supervisors (quality and safety staff and clinical supervisors). Purposeful sampling was used to recruit participants and data were analysed using thematic analysis. RESULTS: Both graduates and workplace supervisors perceived the CAP to be valuable. A major theme was that the CAP made a contribution to individual graduate's medical practice, including improved knowledge in some areas of patient care as well as awareness of healthcare systems issues and preparedness to undertake scientifically rigorous quality improvement activities. Graduates perceived that as a result of the CAP, they were confident in undertaking a clinical audit after graduation. Workplace supervisors perceived the value of the CAP beyond an educational experience and felt that the audits undertaken by students improved quality and safety of patient care. CONCLUSIONS: It is vital that health professionals, including medical graduates, be able to carry out quality and safety activities in the workplace. This study provides evidence that completing a structured clinical audit during medical school prepares graduates to undertake quality and safety activities upon workplace entry. Other health professional faculties may be interested in incorporating a similar program in their curricula.
Subject(s)
Clinical Audit/methods , Clinical Competence , Education, Medical, Undergraduate/methods , Students, Medical/psychology , Attitude of Health Personnel , Curriculum , Female , Humans , Interviews as Topic , Male , Perception , Schools, Medical , WorkplaceABSTRACT
We aimed to identify patient perceptions of barriers to discussing sexually transmitted infections (STIs) at the primary care level. An anonymous questionnaire was available to patients (16-70 years) in the waiting room of four metropolitan Perth general practices. Results are based on 370 participant views (9.5% of the potential target population). Patients felt comfortable discussing STIs with their general practitioner (GP) and their level of comfort would be enhanced if they knew their GP had a special interest or qualification in sexual health. Willingness to discuss issues increased or remained unchanged if the GP took time to explain it to them or was a good listener. Patients were willing to discuss STIs if they were a new patient and irrespective of the GP's gender and age. Fewer patients were willing to discuss STIs if they knew the GP socially. Patients who had sex with a new partner were willing to request a STI test from their GP. Patients were not embarrassed if discussion was initiated in a consultation unrelated to sexual health and did not mind discussing the topic in the presence of a partner or parent, though this depended on circumstances. Waiting room STI test advertising did not affect patient comfort level. Patients would involve their GP when seeking information about STIs. Patients have fewer barriers to discussing sexual health matters than perceived by GPs.
Subject(s)
Attitude to Health , General Practice/methods , Health Services Accessibility , Physician-Patient Relations , Sexually Transmitted Diseases/diagnosis , Sexually Transmitted Diseases/psychology , Adolescent , Adult , Aged , Australia , Clinical Competence , Communication , Family Practice/methods , Female , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Sexual Partners/psychology , Sexually Transmitted Diseases/therapy , Social Behavior , Surveys and Questionnaires , Young AdultABSTRACT
Portrayals of mental illness in the media reportedly highlight violence and crime by the 'mentally ill'. Using a discourse analytic approach we investigated representations of 'depression' in the print media in Australia during the year 2000. Unlike other 'mental illnesses', in the case of depression the media stress the need for the protection of the sufferer, rather than others. Three key discourses are identified - the biomedical, the psycho-social and the administrative/managerial - which work to normalise depression by presenting it as beyond the control of the afflicted individual: a consequence of faulty brain chemistry or the product of social conditions. These discourses work together to produce unhappiness as individualised pathology in need of management through biological, psychological or social structural controls.
