Learning by experience. A student residential workshop in hospital.

A four-day residential workshop was conducted for students beginning their clinical studies at the St George Hospital in 1974. The aim of the workshop was that the students should understand the functioning of the hospital and feel comfortable as students in the hospital, so that they would learn their clinical skills more effectively in their subsequent years at the hospital. Each student lived in a hospital bed with an "illness" for two days, and spent another two days helping care for these "student patients" and exploring the hospital. Evaluation at the end of the workshop suggested that the objectives had been achieved.