Bedside teaching: everybody’s but nobody’s responsibility

Abstract

Evidence shows dwindling levels of bedside teaching for medical students in the UK, especially in district general hospitals. Lack of individual responsibility has resulted in disengagement in teaching. Based on a quality improvement project (QIP) at a District General Hospital, we suggest some ways this could be addressed. We suggest here that harnessing support from the medical education lead, incentivizing teaching, allocating student-junior doctor groups to harbor personal responsibility, providing a supportive framework, and educating about barriers to teaching can all be used to develop an effective teaching program.

Keywords:

• bedside teaching
• quality improvement
• junior doctor

Authors

Dr Amy Gimson, Dr Shagayegh Javadzadeh, and Dr Akash Doshi; junior doctors who designed and implemented a foundation doctor-lead medical student teaching program whilst working for Barts Health NHS trust.

Acknowledgment

We acknowledge the support of Dr Daniel Turton and Dr Catherine Huntley, and the Barts Health NHS Trust Education Academy for supporting the development of the teaching program.

Author contributions

All authors contributed to data analysis, drafting and revising the article, gave final approval of the version to be published, and agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work

Disclosure

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.