Does a clerkship affect students' views of psychiatric patients?

This study deals with the views of medical students toward real psychiatric patients. The students answered seven questions about ten patients who had been interviewed by a senior faculty member. The interviews were recorded on audiovisual tapes. The questions dealt with different aspects of mental illness and included views on how laypersons would evaluate and respond to patients, what it would be like to care for the patients, and whether the patients were potentially dangerous. Answers to questions were correlated. Gender and the student's accuracy in rating psychopathology were used as independent variables to examine students' views and the possible change in these views as a result of participating in a 6-week psychiatric clerkship. The pattern of intercorrelations is reported and discussed. Negative views correlated with anticipated difficulty in caring for patients, and positive views correlated with a higher accuracy in rating psychopathology. In general, student views about mental illness were relatively impervious to the effect of a clerkship. Results are discussed in terms of prior research and knowledge about gender differences in interpersonal sensitivity. Some of the social implications of the results are discussed.