These are some of the challenges, we often encounter in clinical teaching and the proposed solutions/alternate strategies that can be employed:
1. Time Limitation and venue for teaching. Clinical Settings (OPD, ER or Wards) are often busy and fast-paced, leaving little time for instructors to provide individualized instructions and equal opportunities to all students. This can be addressed by coming up with a structured checklist or outline of things that must be taught and accomplished in each session and ensuring that this is followed.
2. Paucity of patients and variability in patient presentations. It was very evident during the pandemic, the lack of patient pool for clinical teaching and it limited the opportunities for students to learn firsthand from patients. Also, patients may present with a wide range of symptoms and conditions and at times may be challenging for the instructors to standardize approaches to diagnosis and management.
This can be addressed through simulation exercises, recycling of patient archives or use of hypothetical prototype cases.
3. Clinical Settings may not provide enough opportunities for feedback from their educators, there is not enough time to do assessment and feedback. This can be addressed through case-based discussions or OSCE to check what the students learned from the rotation or Self-assessment/evaluation or reflection to see how the students perceive their learning and their rotation.
4. Lack of facilities. Most of the time, there is a big disconnect between what they study in their basic classes or what they read in the books or journals. With the rapid evolution of technology and its utilization in healthcare, a lot of advancements in patient care and in the health setting are available elsewhere (in bigger institutions or in first world countries). But this is a major problem in most facilities here in the Philippines.
This can be addressed through simulation exercises, video lessons or in collaboration or consortium with bigger institutions (local or abroad).
