Perception of Inpatients for Medical Skills Education at a Turkish University Hospital

Objective: This investigation was performed in order to determine the perception of in patients at the Erciyes University Hospital for medical students' skills education. Material and Methods: This cross sectional study was performed on 850 adult inpatients hospitalized in a teaching hospital for at least three days. A questionnaire was applied to the patients by face-to-face interview. Results: Of the patients in the study group, 73.7% stated that it was acceptable that medical students gained medical skills by training on patients. Of the study group, 92.8% stated that medical students taking history of patients was acceptable, 86.6% observing physical examination, 75.8% observing surgical operation, 73.1% performing physical examination, and 61.7% carrying out invasive procedures, such as intravascular interventions. The rate of patients who considered refusing medical students to perform interventions on themselves was 11.7%, whereas only 2.9% had actually done so. Only the education level of the patient had a significant impact on considering refusal of medical procedures by medical students. Conclusion: In this study, most of the participants approved medical schools training on patients but it seems that per-forming medical procedures on patients will be more difficult when the level of education increases.