Evaluations of medical students' clinical experiences in a family medicine clerkship: differences in patient encounters by disease severity in different clerkship sites.

Background And Objectives: Evaluation of medical students'clinical encounters is an essential component of optimizing their educational experience. In this study, we collected data on the diagnoses and disease severity in student-patient encounters at different family medicine clerkship sites.

Methods: Participants were 582 third-year medical students who completed a total of 7,515 specially designed patient encounter cards in a 6-week family medicine clerkship atfive training sites over 3 years.

Results: Variation was found in the average number of encounters in different clerkship sites. The findings for three frequently encountered diseases (essential hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and upper respiratory infection) showed significant differences in the proportions of patients at different stages of the disease in different clerkship sites.

Conclusions: Students at different clerkship sites experience different numbers of encounters with patients and significant variation in the illness severity of patients seen in those encounters.