Investigation of educational interaction among instructors and students in an outpatient clinic

Introduction: One of the main educational fields in medical education is an outpatient clinic. To better understand the clinical teaching-learning process in outpatient education, the quality of interactions among instructors, students, and patients was investigated in this study.Methods: This was a qualitative study which was conducted in an educational hospital at the Department of Surgery. The researcher observed interactions for 5 months and analyzed the 5th month's data only. All observations were narrated and qualitative content analysis method was adopted to analyze the data. Result: A total of 68 codes are extracted. The classification of revealed codes led to the generation of 10 sub-themes and four main themes. The theme "the instructional interaction" consists of "variety in teaching methods, selective educational content, instructors coordination, and course content based on educational needs" sub-themes. The theme "instructional management" consists of educational supervision and time management sub-themes. The theme "interactive learning" consists of "learning through interaction with patients" and "learning through interaction with peer" sub-themes. The theme "instructor as a role model" consists of "respect to codes of conduct" and "respect to patient's right" sub-themes. Conclusion: To enhance teaching and learning effectiveness in outpatient setting, more attention should be paid regarding the main themes of this study. More studies are needed to explore the quality of educational interaction in other clinical setting.