Twelve tips for integrating medical students into specialty clinics

Abstract

The specialty clinic is an excellent educational environment for medical students. However, preceptors face several challenges as they seek to balance treating complex system-specific conditions with effective teaching, including time constraints, clinical tasks, engaging multi-level learners, and perhaps a lack of guidelines for or training in outpatient medical education. We thus propose twelve tips for integrating medical students into specialty clinics in a feasible and mutually fulfilling way. The first three tips focus on planning the session and setting expectations, the next seven tips detail specific, actionable strategies for enhancing learning while maximizing efficiency, and the final two tips discuss how to optimally close the session with feedback and debriefing.

Keywords:

• Curriculum
• education environment
• discipline
• ambulatory medicine
• management
• roles of teacher
• phase of education
• undergraduate

Acknowledgements

The authors have no acknowledgements for this manuscript

Ethical approval

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Disclosure statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

The authors report no funding for this manuscript.

Notes on contributors

Beatrix Thompson

Beatrix Thompson, BA, is a second-year medical student at Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA.

Katherine Brag

Katherine Brag, MD, FAAD, is a core faculty member for the Harvard Combined Dermatology Residency and an instructor at Harvard Medical School. She practices complex medical dermatology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, MA.