The teaching learning process of the clinical method. An experience with Medicine sixth -year students

Abstract

The clinical method is the scientific method applied to the work with patients and is an essential part of the content the Medicine student has to know, requiring a constant correction during their daily practice. An observational quantitative research was carried out in the Matanzas Teaching Pediatric Hospital Eliseo Noel Caamaño Álvarez. We worked with the universe of the Medicine sixth-year students taking the matter of Pediatrics in the school year 2011-2012 (123 students). For collecting the information we applied an observational guide structured on the stages followed in the clinical method application, but characterized by deepening in each stage until reaching the saturation of the obtained information via repeating observation. The stages taken into account are identification and searching information on the patient´s problem, diagnosis and interpretation and finally decision taking and communitarian projection.  Among the first stage results, the biggest difficulty was the deficient identification of the problem; during the diagnosis stage there it was lack of reasoning, and in the decision making stage problems with the therapeutic behavior; the communitarian projection was not successful. Though the students showed knowledge of the stages to follow in the clinical method, the reasoning and application of the method is considered unsatisfactory.