Promoting Collaborative Teaching in Clinical Education

Background: Although the practice of medicine is increasingly a multidisciplinary effort, clinical teaching of medical students is accomplished primarily within a departmental structure. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify subject matter within the clinical curriculum that could serve as focus for multidisciplinary teaching. Methods: A questionnaire was sent to 13 clerkship directors (representing required clerkships) at a large Midwestern medical school in which they were asked to rate a list of 631 patient problems as critical (primary), important (secondary), or "nice to know," relevant to their respective clerkship objectives. Results: All clerkship directors completed the questionnaire. There were 523 items that were considered primary, and over 90% of these items were listed as either primary or secondary in more than 1 clerkship. Twelve topics were considered primary or secondary by at least 5 clerkship directors. Four clerkship directors identified 43 patient problems, and 3 clerkship directors identified 92 topics as primary or secondary clerkship objectives. Conclusions: In this study, listing of patient problems across clerkships demonstrated significant overlap of the clinical curriculum, suggesting multiple opportunities for faculty collaboration in clinical education.