The status of bedside teaching in the United Kingdom: the student perspective

Purpose: Bedside teaching holds a strong tradition as a key-learning platform for clinical examination in the basic medical clerkship. There is a growing body of literature expressing concern for its witnessed decline in medical school curricula. However, the views of students toward this patient-centered cornerstone in surgical education remain under-reported. The purpose of this study was to gain a nationwide perspective on bedside teaching according to medical students in the United Kingdom. Materials and methods: An adapted Delphi method was employed to formulate the question series as part of a multi-step process including a pilot study, which was used to construct this survey. The target population was medical undergraduates in the United Kingdom and partici-pants were recruited via social media. Outcomes assessed included exposure to bedside teach-ing, perceived benefits of clinical simulation, and junior doctors as clinical teachers. Barriers to clinical examination were also evaluated. Results: Overall, 368 completed surveys were received (completion rate 98.9%). Final year students were significantly more likely to report receiving insufficient bedside teachin