Benefits of simulated General Practice clinics in the preparation of medical students for primary healthcare

ABSTRACT

The James Cook University (JCU) medical school has a mission to produce doctors who are willing to work across northern Australia and may choose generalist rather than specialist careers. In addition to real-life placements in primary healthcare settings, the medical school has developed simulated General Practice (GP) clinics (simGPclinic) for Year 5 (Y5) students. This study compares the simGPclinic with actual GP placements for authenticity, teaching clinical skills, and preparation for real-life primary healthcare settings. Y5 students were administered a survey following their simGPclinic (n = 65; response rate = 97%).

Students rated the simGPclinic’s authenticity as 77 out of 100, and were more likely to rate the simGPclinic as being ‘better’ than their real-life GP placement in teaching them to: ‘formulate a medical management plan and order correct pathology tests’; ‘rule out the “red flags” for the key clinical problem’; ‘undertake a patient-centred history and examination’; ‘make a differential diagnosis for the key clinical problem’; and, ‘develop communications skills’.

The simGPclinic provided medical students with authentic and positive learning experiences in primary healthcare that were at least as beneficial as those provided in real-life settings, as well as being more reliable and better structured.

KEYWORDS:

• Simulation
• primary care
• clinical skills
• undergraduate
• medical

Acknowledgments

We wish to acknowledge with gratitude all those who have worked in the JCU simGPclinics, especially the volunteer simulated patients.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflict of interest regarding this study excepting that all are staff of the James Cook University medical school.

Ethical Approval

Ethical approval was obtained from the JCU Human Ethics Committee (# H6921).