Critical shortage of quality clinical teaching must be addressed

Editor - In recent months the problem of how medical teaching is to keep up with exploding numbers of students has been widely discussed. It was not until recently, however, that I witnessed the true scale of the problem first hand.

I study at the only medical school in Wales with near exclusive access to 20 other teaching hospitals. It seemed logical to assume that if the crisis in the ratio of clinicians to students was going to bypass anywhere, it would be here. This concept evaporated on a recent special study module attachment to a surgical firm in a large teaching hospital. No less than 17 medical students were attached to this single firm, and in addition there were visits from fifth year students attached to our house officer and even a sixth former on work experience. Ward rounds became farcical, with so many white coats trying to chase a single consultant. Visits to theatre were akin to a trip on the 7.30 am to Paddington, with the chance of seeing anything but a mass of green, a distant hope. As a consequence my special study module was transformed into an exercise in self directed learning and late evening visits to avoid the hordes.

Such occurrences will only become more common unless the critical shortage of quality clinical teaching is addressed. Student numbers at my university are continuing to swell, this years intake increased by 25% compared with my own year. A review of current practice in medical teaching is needed both on a local and a national level, otherwise the extra doctors that the government has promised for 2008 will be undertrained.