Designing an Optimally Educational Anesthesia Clerkship for Medical Students - Survey Results of a New Curriculum.

BACKGROUND: The field of anesthesia continues to be poorly understood and underestimated as a career choice for graduating medical students. The anesthesia clerkship is an important educational experience in which students learn a wealth of medical knowledge. Our aim was to develop an anesthesia clerkship which exposed the students to many aspects of anesthesiology in a well structured supervised environment. Based on this, we hoped that a positive learning experience would attract medical students to choose anesthesiology as a career.
METHODS: We structured a four week anesthesia clerkship for third and fourth year medical students, which comprised of time in operating room, intensive care unit, pain and perioperative environments. The students completed a survey anonymously at the conclusion of their clerkship. We gathered 25 medical students' opinion of their newly revised 4 week anesthesia clerkship and analyzed their comments in the hope of creating an optimal educational experience for future students.
RESULTS: Students reported an overall satisfaction with the new curriculum. Ninety-six percent of students stated that the clerkship increased their desire to pursue a career in anesthesia.
CONCLUSIONS: The response to our survey showed that a structured educational four week anesthesia clerkship was highly satisfactory and increased medical students desire to pursue a career in anesthesia.