Meeting real patients: a qualitative study of medical students' experiences of early patient contact.

Teaching communication skills is an important task in the medical curriculum. It is widely agreed that the ability to communicate with the patient is just as important as biomedical knowledge and technical skills. We present data from an early patient contact (EPC) course with integrated theoretical and practical skills inspired by modifications of Kolb's learning cycle. Our objective was to examine first-term medical students' personal experiences and challenges with EPC. A qualitative design was adopted, with data from written logbooks and focus group interviews with medical students who had recently completed an EPC course. Data were analysed with a grounded theory approach. We found that meeting with a real patient--a person--was a central point of learning. Students' perceptions and reflections on their future profession and personal skills were broadened. Students became respectful of a patient's life and illness experiences, and their understanding of communication as central to a doctor's daily work increased. Our results deepen the current knowledge of students' benefit from EPC by taking it into first-term students' perspectives and focusing on the personal experiences and challenges that the students met during the course. Further integration of the patient in the learning processes is recommended.