Students’ and Teachers’ Perceptions of Factors Leading to Poor Clinical Skill Development in Medical Education: A Descriptive Study

Background. Our study was taken up to explore the possible factors influencing poor performance of undergraduate students in clinical skill demonstration. Aims. Identification of factors leading to poor clinical skill development in undergraduate medical students. Settings and Design. This is an observational study. Methods and Material. The study population comprised the undergraduate students and teachers of the Department of Medicine. All were provided with structured questionnaires who responded anonymously which were then interpreted with the help of software statistical calculator. Results. Of the 145 students, only 57 (39.3%) actually attended medicine ward. The major factors that the students reported were large groups of students around a patient (94.74% ± 4.67), inadequacy of information in books of clinical medicine (78.9% ± 8.53), overcrowded unclean wards (73.7% ± 9.2), lack of practice of clinical methods at home (50.8% ± 10.4), and timing of classes (42.1% ± 10.3). Teachers cited poor attendance of students to wards (76.2% ± 17.1), poor condition of wards and lack of separate enclosures to teach (100%), and large groups around a single patient (66.67% ± 17.9). Conclusions. Absenteeism of students, overcrowding of wards, and lack of uniformity of study materials were prime factors.