JRSM > Volume 95, Number 4 > Pp. 218

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Teaching clinical skills to preregistration house officers

Emma J Breese   Ali S M Jawad

Department of Medical and Dental Education, Barts and the London NHS Trust, 48 Ashfield Street, London E1 4AD, UK

We agree with Goodfellow and Claydon (October 2001 JRSM¹) that the training of final-year medical students and preregistration house officers (PRHOs) in clinical skills can be improved. Better use can be made of the induction programme for PRHOs to include training in clinical skills, particularly as there is a substantial gap between MB BS final examinations and the start of the first house job.

This year, our induction programme at Barts and The London NHS Trust was extended to 2 days and the structure was changed. The purpose of this was threefold—foremost, to enable the new PRHOs to spend more time on the wards with the outgoing house officers; secondly, the number of talks was reduced to those deemed essential, to prevent information overload, and a less formal approach of ‘stands’ for other information was adopted; finally, the increased length of the induction allowed us to include small-group ‘hands-on’ training in cardiopulmonary resuscitation and also training in the patient database system. We would like to expand on clinical skills for the new PRHO induction in August 2002 to include urinary catheterization, venepuncture, intravenous cannulation, arterial blood sampling and electrocardiography interpretation, using the facilities of a clinical skills laboratory. Training in needle-stick injury should be included either in induction or early in the weekly teaching sessions for PRHOs.

Post-induction, we have used our Simulation Centre to train PRHOs in management of acute emergencies in respiratory medicine and cardiology, and this year two more sessions have been added in head injury and diabetic emergencies.

Extending induction to more than 2 days may pose logistical difficulties—e.g. payment for PRHOs, and accommodation. Since the starting day is always a Tuesday, greater than 2 days is not feasible.

REFERENCES

1. Goodfellow PB, Claydon P. Students sitting medical finals—ready to be house officers? J R Soc Med2001; 94:516 -20[Abstract/Free Full Text]

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This Article Full Text (PDF) Send a Quick Comment Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when Quick Comments are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Breese, E. J Articles by Jawad, A. S M Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Social Bookmarking                      What's this?