Munaib Chowdhury¹
Suhyun Youn¹, Maria Karavassilis¹, Dmitriy Chernov¹,Thomas Braby¹, and Senan Devendra¹,
1 West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

The transition from medical student to junior doctor is challenging. To ease this, the Preparing for Patients (PfP) program was developed for medical students in the United Kingdom as their final placement before entering clinical practice. The program’s aim is to enable medical students to think and act like a doctor. However, the current curriculum lacked structure and guidance to accurately reflect competencies expected of a new junior doctor. 

We present the Zuboshi Bullseye program, a list of 50 tasks for medical students from University College London to try to complete during their four-week PfP block. The list was created with input from students, junior and senior clinicians, and designed to ensure they reflected the key competencies expected of a junior doctor, encompassing clinical and communication skills and cultural safety. Group A was assessed in 2021, with progress assessed retrospectively. In 2022, Group B was introduced to the tasks prospectively. Finally, Group C was informed at the beginning that prizes would be awarded for the highest achievers. Feedback was also collected about the level of preparedness students felt at the end of the attachment. 

We observed an increase in progress year-on-year. In Group A, the mean number of tasks achieved was 6.5 (n=6, SD=1.76), increasing to 16.2 in Group B (n=24, SD=6.6) and 22.9 in Group C (n=11, SD=3.96, p=0.003). Our results indicated that students preferred a clearer structure when navigating the placement and felt more confident in their preparedness. Incentivization of progress had a significant positive impact on progression. Revisions of the list improved overall impressions of utility, suggesting that keeping the list dynamic maximised the overall benefits of the block. 

In conclusion, we have shown that a locally adapted incentivized task list improves the reported preparedness of medical students in their final clinical placement. 

References (maximum three) 

General Medical Council (2015) Promoting excellence: standards for medical education and training. Available at: https://www.gmc-uk.org/education/standards-guidance-and- curricula/standards-and-outcomes/promoting-excellence (Accessed: 5 May 2023).