Learners’ Perspective on the Situation of Bed Side Teaching on the Medical Floor in a Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital

Objective: Decline in bedside teaching is one of the problems that medical education is facing today. It has always been the best modality for effectively impart-ing clinical skills. It has declined from 75% in 1960s to 8 – 19% today. Various factors notably advancing medical technology are in essence phasing out bedside teaching. Our study was aimed to assess frequency and adequacy of bedside teaching on the medical floor. Methods: This cross sectional study conducted in May 2015 in Mayo Hospital, Lahore included 152 trainee doctors, who gave feedback about various asp-ects of bedside teaching via a self- administered que-stionnaire. Frequency of bedside teaching was asse-ssed in terms of number of sessions per week. It was considered adequate if its various aspects including contributions by teachers, learners, allied health pro-fessionals and patients were carried out in 70% or more sessions. Z-test was used to compare these aspe-cts to the adequacy criterion. Responses of house offi-cers and postgraduates and male and female doctors 1Assistant Professor of Medicine, King Edward Medical University, Lahore 2 Medical Officer, Mayo Hospital, Lahore 3 Professor of Medicine, King Edward Medical University, Lahore Date of Submission: 1-5-2016 Date of Acceptance for Publication: 6-9-2016 Conflict of Interest: None Funding Source: None Contribution All Authors have contributed in Study Design, Data Collection, Data Analysis, Data Interpretation, Manuscript Writing and Appr-oval. were compared by t-test. P-value 0.05 was conside-red significant. Results: Frequency of bedside teaching was reported to be 62.25%. All aspects of bedside teaching were significantly lower than the adequacy criterion (p-value 0.000). The inadequacy was more noticeable by postgraduates (p-value 0.05). Conclusion: Frequency of bedside teaching was acce-ptable but the adequacy criterion was not achieved in any of the areas studied.