The clinical skills experience of rural immersion medical students and traditional hospital placement students: a student perspective.

Background: Recent decades have seen an international trend for the development of undergraduate medical programmes in rural locations. These have been considered educationally equivalent alternatives to traditional hospital-based programmes. A pilot Rural Medical Immersion Programme (RMIP) was launched at the University of Otago.

Aims: To examine the clinical skills experience of RMIP students and to compare it to that of fifth-year students based in the traditional, often urban and hospital-based, rotations.

Methods: An online questionnaire was completed by 23 medical students: six RMIP students and 17 hospital-based students. Students rated their level of experience in a variety of skills and their self-perceived competence for performing these skills after their fifth year. Total experience and confidence was compared using Mann-Whitney U test, as were subsets of skills.

Results: There was no difference found in the total clinical skills experience and confidence between RMIP and traditional students. RMIP students reported greater experience of patient examination and patient education skills; traditional students reported greater experience and confidence in investigation and interpretative skills.

Conclusion: Clinical skills experience of the RMIP students is at least equivalent to that of their peers in the tertiary hospital setting. However, attention may be needed in the development of 'investigative and interpretative skills' for rural immersion students.