LEARNING-OBJECTIVES OF MEDICAL-STUDENTS - WHAT IS THE MESSAGE

Objective: To involve medical students actively in defining their lear ning objectives. Material and methods: A cohort of 51 medical students during their 6 weeks attachment to the Department of Family and Commu nity Medicine at King Saud University were asked at the beginning of t he attachment to work out their learning objectives with the help of t heir tutors, Produced learning objectives were analyzed and compared t o a similar study carried out in the U.K. Results: With 100% response rate a total of 418 learning objectives were identified by this cohort of students. In comparison to British medical students there were sim ilarities as well as differences which may reflect environmental diffe rences. Discussion and conclusion: Recent trends in medical education emphasize the importance of active participation of medical students i n the learning process. However, unless the environment is conducive s tudents may be inhibited from taking the risk of change from passive a bsorber of information into active learner. Medical schools should ado pt certain strategies which enable students to be active, self-directe d and critical learners. In this way we can produce versatile doctors who could cope well with constant change. This study has shown that ou r medical students can be involved actively in identifying their learn ing objectives and, interestingly, they see primary care both as a use ful and diverse source of learning for them.