Background:

Current health care reform calls for an increase of 46,000 full‐time equivalent primary care providers by 2025, requiring a significant expansion of teaching and training venues. Questions arise as to whether there are sufficient physician faculty to teach medical students. Willingness of physicians to teach depends in part on the patients’ attitudes toward medical students. This study explores patients’ attitudes toward medical students involved in clinical care in the outpatient setting

Methods:

A mailed survey drawing on primary care records maintained by a 300‐physician group in a Midwest university community of 150,000 was used to assess patients’ attitudes toward medical students. The original 12‐item instrument was rephrased to use a 5‐point Likert scale (from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree) along with 8 background sociodemographic questions. The chi‐square analysis examined the associations between the attitude questions and the sociodemographic variables.

Results:

There were statistically significant associations (P < 0.05) between individual questions and 7 sociodemographic variables. The pattern of associations between sociodemo‐graphic characteristics and individual questions illustrates different preferences according to subgroups of patients. Older patients reported that they would react to a student's country of origin and examination of genitalia more often than did younger patients. Younger patients disproportionately wanted the right to refuse student participation but were less likely to feel embarrassed by questions about alcohol intake or sexual activities. Patients with more education wished to be informed in advance about the presence of a medical student, whereas patients with a high school education or less were more likely to object to a student being present and would object if a student examined the patient. White patients were more likely to react to a student's nationality and/or culture compared with the other racial and ethnic groups. More women than men expressed discomfort with examination of their genitalia, whereas more men than women had more difficulty discussing topics identified as personal. The respondents felt they would cooperate with the student, but they also wished to retain the right to refuse participation if they so wished and to be informed in advance of a student's presence.

Conclusions:

Efforts under way to expand training in primary care may lead to physician involvement in venues not accustomed to teaching and supervising medical students. The results of this single‐center study suggest that patient views on who they feel comfortable with interacting in their clinical care should be considered in designing clinical experiences for medical students.

Disclosures:

A. Kalra ‐ none; R. Tandon ‐ none; J. S. Reis ‐ none; J. A. Jokela ‐ none; R. W. Kirby ‐ none