Using the clinical challenges encountered by junior residents to inform curriculum for paediatric pre-intern students.

Aim: To develop and evaluate a novel skills-based education programme for medical students completing a paediatric pre-internship (PrInt) at the Children's Hospital at Westmead (CHW), Sydney which incorporated a mini-clinical evaluation exercise style formative assessment component and was based upon a local needs assessment of junior staff.

Methods: We designed a teaching programme which included four interactive tutorials and formative assessment tasks using observed clinical exercises (OCE). The final programme was informed by a local need-based assessment of out-of-hours junior doctors' tasks. Students rated their level of confidence prior to and after the tutorial and following the OCE. Students provided structured and free text feedback on the programme.

Results: Of 29 PrInt students (2007-2008), with collectively 85 tutorial attendances, 84% rated the programme excellent (39%) or very good (45%). For each topic students' confidence increased after the tutorial and again after the OCE (P < 0.001). Improvement was most marked for skills for which students rated themselves pre-teaching as having poor confidence (pain management and calculation of rehydration fluids). Overall, the proportion with 'high' confidence increased from 8.2% pre-tutorial to 38.8% post-tutorial and 72.9% post-OCE (P < 0.001). Competence in skills was assessed by OCE and all students achieved scores of >90%. Diaries from junior doctors during 20 shifts at the CHW recorded 398 out-of-hours activities, the most common of which are ordering intravenous fluids (19.6%), reviewing asthmatics (16.6%) and recharting medications (16.3%).

Conclusion: PrInt students value structured teaching incorporating OCE, which allows assessment of clinical skills and direct formative feedback and promotes gains in confidence, knowledge and skills. Addition of OCE to the teaching programme significantly increased the confidence of PrInt students in performing specific tasks compared with an educational session alone. Local needs assessment of junior doctors by out-of-hours survey both confirmed selection of appropriate topics (pain, fluids) and informed additional topics (asthma management and bronchodilator weaning regime) for future PrInt student programmes.