Introduction: Teaching renal physiology for undergraduate
medical students in an understandable way using methods which
improve their deep learning has always been a problem. In this
study, Early Clinical Exposure (ECE) was used in teaching renal
physiology for the second year medical students in Shiraz Medical
School. This article aims to introduce and develop this program
and also measure the attitude of medical students toward ECE in
learning renal physiology.
Methods: This is a mixed method study conducted on 120 second
year undergraduate students. After performing the course, both
qualitative and quantitative methods were used for measuring the
viewpoints of the students. In the qualitative part, 10 high rank
medical students were selected. These students participated in
brain storming sessions to express their opinion about the program
based on the strengths and weaknesses. For trustworthiness of the
qualitative part, member check and peer check were done. In the
quantitative part, a researcher-made questionnaire was used based
on the objectives of the program in a 4 point Likert scale. The
validity of questionnaire was determined by medical education
experts and reliability was determined after a pilot study.
Results: Based on the results of the quantitative part of the study,
98 percent of the students stated that the ECE program was
generally a useful program. In the qualitative part, the students’
comments were obtained. The benefits of the program were
summarized in 4 main themes. These themes are “understanding
of renal physiology”, “Integration of basic and clinical knowledge”,
“Improvement of attitude toward importance of physiology”, and
“encouragement to study”. In response to the questions about
negetive aspects of this program in qualitative part, the two main
themes were insufficient time and large grup size.
Conclusion: Students reported that ECE was useful, but they
stated that they needed to have more encounter with patients
and more hospital teaching. The results also reveal that this ECE
program is an excellent approach to strengthen learning in a
difficult subject like renal physiology. This approach is adjustable
to other basic science topics and subjects as well