How Students Learn From Community-Based

Objective:To explore how students learn in community-based family physicians ’ offices from the student’s point of view. Method: Each student completing a community-based family medicine clerkship wrote a “critical incident ” nar-rative about an event that was particularly educational. A coding system was developed by a multidisciplinary research team and thematic analysis was conducted. Results: Critical education experiences were brief, problem-focused, had definitive outcomes, were often collaborative, and led to self-reflection. The most com-monly identified mode of learning was “active obser-vation. ” In most of these situations, the student had significant clinical responsibility, but some involved observation of complex tasks beyond the expectation