Bedside Teaching in Undergraduate Medical Education: Issues, Strategies, and New Models for Better Preparation of New Generation Doctors

Abstract

AbstractBedside teaching is a vital component of medical education. It isapplicable to any situation where teaching is imparted in thepresence of patients. In teaching in the patients’ presence, learnershave the opportunities to use all of their senses and learn thehumanistic aspect of medicine such as role modeling, which isvital but difficult to communicate in words. Unfortunately, bedsideteaching has been on the decline. To investigate the reasonsfor the decline in bedside teaching, its importance and its revival,a review of literature was carried out using PubMed and otherdata bases. The review revealed that the major concerns of bedsideteaching were time constraint, false preceptors’ concernabout patients’ comfort, short stay of patients in hospitals, learnerdistraction by technology, lack of experience and unrealistic facultyexpectation. Whatsoever the reasons, bedside teaching cannotbe replaced with anything else. There are newer approachesof effective bedside teaching, and the core focus of all such approachesis educational process. A bedside teacher must learnhow to involve patients and learners in the educational processes.Moreover, bedside teaching is the process through which learnersacquire the skills of communication by asking patients’ permission,establishing ground rules, setting time limit, introducing theteam, diagnosing learner, diagnosing patient, conducting focusedteaching, using simple language, asking patient if there is anyquestion, closing with encouraging thanks, and giving feedbackprivately. It is most important to ensure a comfortable environmentfor all participants, the learner, the patient and the bedsideteacher. Ongoing faculty development programs on educationalprocesses and realistic faculty expectations may overcome theproblems.

Keywords

• Bedside teaching
• issues
• strategies
• new models