The patient's experience of being interviewed by first-year medical students

Abstract

To understand hospitalized patients' experiences of being interviewed by first-year medical students learning to take a medical history we used qualitative research methods and interviewed participating patients.All of the interviewed patients expressed satisfaction with the medical student interviews and they expressed two major reasons for being satisfied. First, all of the patients had favorable impressions of the students.The students were described using phrases such as "very nice", "interested", "respectful", and "professional". Second, most of the patients expressed a belief in the importance of teaching followed by phrases such as "So, I was glad to help", and ".. so I had no problem talking to him" and "I felt special". In summary, these hospitalized patients were satisfied with first-year medical student interviews, and they mentioned two reasons for being satisfied. The patients had favorable impressions of the first-year students and they expressed a belief in the importance of teaching.