Research tasks as part of the general practice clerkship in undergraduate medical education - a pilot project on feasibility and acceptance.

AbstractObjective: To assess the integration of a research task performed by students during their two-week clerkship in general practice. Methods: Students were assigned to interview five patients with coronary heart disease using a standardised questionnaire focusing on potential interaction of medications with statins. Acceptance and feasibility was assessed by means of a questionnaire survey of teaching physicians (n = 20) and students (n = 20). Results: According to most teaching physicians and students the recruitment of patients during the two-week clerkship was possible, and the practice work flow was not disturbed by the project. Both groups considered the research task on the documentation of potential drug interactions with statins as suitable. According to the teaching physicians the project had a learning effect for the students. In contrast, the students graded their learning effect less highly between ‘satisfactory’ and ‘sufficient’. The overall assessment of the project by the students was...