Abstract
Introduction: Although community medicine clerkship has been introduced in many medical universities, no study of students’ learning during the clerkship has been conducted. Also, no evaluation of students’ learning about family and community has been carried out.
Methods: Sapporo Medical University fifth-grade students in the fiscal year 2006 to 2007 experienced two-week community medicine clerkships. They were obliged to record their clerkship experiences on a daily reflection sheet. We analyzed all the reflection sheets to understand what the students learned during their clerkships. We extracted all points considered to be examples of learning from the students’ descriptions, and classified these by content, and we also extracted examples of learning about family and community.
Results: The total number of points with learning content that were extracted was 2243 in 2006, and it was 3193 in 2007. Learning content about family and community averaged 5.2% and 3.7%, respectively, in 2006, and 10.7% and 7.9% in 2007. The total number of points of learning about family and community in 2007 increased significantly in comparison with the number in 2006.
Conclusion: By changing the viewpoint of learning by the introduction of a reflection sheet regarding family and community, even if the experience in community medicine clerkship was the same, students’ learning may have changed substantially. It was considered that the establishment of the framework of reflection was an important step.
