Teaching Clinical Medical Students

Pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine encompasses a wide variety of clinical settings, from ambulatory clinic to in-patient consult services and to the intensive care unit. Teaching medical students in these heterogeneous clinical settings can be challenging, as clinical obligations and students’ needs and expectations can vary. This chapter focuses on strategies to provide optimal teaching to medical students in in-patient clinical settings, including the Pulmonary Consult service and the ICU. Core strategies for engaging and effectively teaching students can be applied in different clinical settings and for different clinical scenarios, however, to address the heterogeneity of teaching clinical students. Specifically, best practices in teaching medical students in clinical settings include prioritizing thoughtful preparation for teaching, encouraging student autonomy and ownership, and emphasizing critical thinking skills and application of knowledge to solve clinical problems. Developing a learning environment that encourages inquisitiveness and open communication can promote students to develop self-directed learning skills, which will significantly add to the educational value of working and learning in the clinical setting.