Clerkship from the Perspective of Medical Students: A Mixed Methods Study

One of the most important tasks of medical science universities is the training of qualified and specialized human resources to acquire the necessary skills and efficiency to meet the needs of society. Apprenticeship training is considered a serious issue in education; therefore, examining the current situation, identifying the problems in the trainee training and taking measures to rectify and correct them will lead to the achievement of learning objectives and the improvement of the quality of health services. The aim of the present study was to investigate the status of the clinical clerkship from the perspective of Esfarayen medical students.

This quantitative-qualitative study was conducted with 163 public health, nursing and emergency medicine students. In the quantitative phase, a standard questionnaire was used to assess check the status of the students' internships. The qualitative phase was also conducted with the aim of determining identifying the challenges in internships from the students' perspective through individual interviews and targeted group discussions.

The educational level of the internship was rated as relatively good with a standard average of 3.47. Although the academic situation of the students' internship was relatively good during the COVID-19 epidemic, there were always challenges in the course of the internship. In the individual interviews and group discussions, the challenges were identified in the form of 6 main codes (challenges related to the instructor, the students, the internship environment, the staff, the training programsand the clients) and 20 sub-codes.

Despite the relatively good condition of the clinical clerkship in a quantitative evaluation, these courses showed problems in a qualitative evaluation, such as insufficient experience and motivation of some professors and instructors, psychological problems of students, lack of educational facilities, weak interaction and participation of some staff, insufficient transparency of the training program, and lack of trust of patients in students. It is suggested to solve the challenges identified in this study to improve the quality and quantity of internship courses.