Clinical instruction in medicine: a national survey.

In this paper the authors report on the medicine phase of three parallel studies undertaken to investigate clinical teaching skills in medicine, dentistry, and nursing. The intent of the overall study was to gather and assess broad-based information useful in the design and implementation of clinical teaching improvement programs in the health sciences. A 14-member consortium representing five schools each in medicine and dentistry and four in nursing collaborated by using a modified Delphi technique to resolve conflict and differences, through group judgments, in preferences to choices among educational goals and activities. Based upon an educational needs assessment, the design of the study and of the research methodology allows replication at individual institutions and provides a systematic approach for designing and implementing faculty development programs with specific skill emphasis at the clinical level.