The Efficiency of a Patient & Doctor Role-play as a Participatory Clinical Clerkship in Korean Dermatology Department

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficiency of patient and doctor role-play on participatory clinical clerkship by surveying student’s satisfaction and assessing the improvement of skill and consultation ability after conducting a role-play in a Korean dermatology department. Methods: In 2013, 79 seniors participated in the clinical clerkship of the dermatology department at the college of Korean medicine. Two students were randomly selected and paired up. After a brief instruction, one student played the role of doctor and the other took the role of patient. After finishing the 1st role-play, they swapped roles and conducted a 2 nd role-play, using another clinical case. When the two role-plays were completed, the students filled in a questionnaire about their satisfaction with the role-play as clinical clerkship. Also, we compared the scores of the 1 st role-play with those of the 2nd role-play measured by a medical resident to assess improvements of students’ skill and interview ability. Results: It appears that students’ satisfaction with the role-play was quite high, considering that the overall mean score of the questionnaire was 4.30. According to the result of a t-test on 15 assessment questions, the 2 nd role-play had a higher mean score than the 1st role-play in 12 questions, though this difference was not statistically significant. Conclusions: These results demonstrate that role-play is helpful to improve students’ satisfaction and clinical performance ability in clinical clerkship. Further research and continuous development are necessary for better clinical clerkship.