The patient's experience of being interviewed by first-year medical students

To understand hospitalized patients' experiences of being interviewed by fi rst-year medical students learning to take a medical history we used qualit ative research methods and interviewed participating patients. All of the i nterviewed patients expressed satisfaction with the medical student intervi ews and they expressed two major reasons for being satisfied. First, all of the patients had favorable impressions of the students. The students were described using phrases such as "very nice", "interested", "respectful", an d "professional". Second, most of the patients expressed a belief in the im portance of teaching followed by phrases such as "So, I was glad to help", and "... so I had no problem talking to him" and "I felt special". In summa ry, these hospitalized patients were satisfied with first-year medical stud ent interviews, and they mentioned two reasons for being satisfied. The pat ients had favorable impressions of the first-year students and they express ed a belief in the importance of teaching.