MEDICAL STUDENTS’ EXPERIENCE OF TEACHING AND EXAMINATION OF VASCULAR SURGERY IN SWEDEN martin.macek@med.lu.se

PW07-14

MEDICAL STUDENTS’ EXPERIENCE OF TEACHING AND EXAMINATION OF VASCULAR SURGERY IN SWEDEN

6

Sweden

Oral or Poster

Clinical history, clinical examination and measuring a patients ankle brachial index are important diagnostic tools when suspecting acute and chronic lower limb ischemia. The aim of this study was to explore medical students’ experience of teachings and examination of vascular surgery during their medical education.

This qualitative study invited, by email, medical students from all medical universities in Sweden to take part in focus group interviews. The students were enrolled at the ninth semester during school year 2024-2025. Focus group interviews were conducted digitally over Zoom except one physical meeting, to ensure that students could participate. The collected data was analyzed by a reflexive thematic analysis approach, presented as narratives and illustrated by citations in text.

Fifty-three medical students were interviewed in eleven focus groups across Sweden. The analysis revealed three themes; vascular surgery as a small part of medical education, useful practical education, and feeling prepared for profession. Student-run outpatient clinics, where medical students conducted patient consultations and examinations under supervision, were experienced to be highly educational and impacted long-term learning positively. Clinical rotations at vascular clinics were considered crucial in ensuring medical students’ abilities to practice clinical examination of patients and relate theory to clinical context, whereas observation of vascular surgical procedures was rated low. The examinations, both practical and theoretical, aligned with the course objectives and were perceived as preparing students for their future profession.

Clinical rotations, student-run outpatient clinics and clinical exposure to patients with vascular surgical diagnoses improved students’ self-perceived knowledge and clinical certainty.