Why some clerkship students are not prepared for the clinical female breast examination.

e11096 Background: The purpose of this study was to identify and track sources of medical student anxiety towards learning the clinical female breast examination (CBE). Methods: A previously validated survey was used to assess medical student anxiety towards learning the CBE. The survey was administered over three academic school years to first year-M1 (N=504) and second year-M2 (N=331) medical students. To further explore results obtained in the first survey, we administered a more in depth survey to M1 (N=321) and M2 (N=178) students. All surveys were administered at the beginning of class, prior to hands-on training using manikins and after training with standardized patients. Chi-Square analysis was used to assess group differences. Results: When evaluating M1 students, 34.7% (175/504) indicated that their top cause of anxiety towards learning CBEs was “the intimate/personal nature of the exam.” M2 students, 48.3% (160/331) indicated that their top cause of anxiety was “fear of missing a lesion.” Anal...