2024 Volume 64 Issue 4 Pages 359-367
Background : In recent years, the importance of community medical training during postgraduate training has been recognized and is often included in the education of medical students. In addition, support for psychosocial aspects is indispensable in the field of regional medical care for organs and illnesses as well as for the holistic medical care of “caring for people.” Given this background, medical students should be able to understand holistic medical care in the practical medical field. We analyzed student reports and considered how they gained awareness.
Method : The contents were analyzed using the Modified Grounded Theory (M-GTA) from the reports of medical students who participated in regional medical training in the free-choice training of the 6th year at Nihon University School of Medicine.
Result : Seventeen student reports were analyzed. Primarily, it was classified into three categories : “noticing patients,” “noticed about practical medical care,” and “noticed about community medicine.” In addition, as subcategories, “how to deal with patients,” “the actual medical treatment,” “cooperation with patient families,” “the importance of communication,” “the importance of problems,” and “the reality of regional medicine” were analyzed. One student perceived the importance of medical care rooted in the area by observing the view of life and death transmitted to the area where the training was conducted and the response of the clinic doctors against that background. Another student imagined work and daily life and perceived the importance of paying attention to the psychosocial background of patients, such as psychological worries, relationships of acceleration, and the work environment when communicating with the five senses in mind.
Conclusion : Medical education is primarily conducted at medical schools, and the staff of each specialized department provide guidance. Individuals tend to focus on specialized medical care, but various notices, including psychosomatic backgrounds, were observed among students who participated in community medicine training. As such, students who participated in the training perceived the importance of treating patients as individuals. Each local inhabitant has various backgrounds depending on the area, and it is difficult to systematically incorporate them into medical education. However, some will be considered by the students themselves through the participation in community medical training.
