Using student doctor or trainee doctor may be helpful

Editor—Given the recent guidelines from the General Medical Council on involving patients in medical education, as highlighted in Tomorrow's Doctors, the article by Howe and Anderson is a particularly useful discussion of the issue.¹,²

Although many patients laudably take part in the delivery of medical education, others have reservations. This may be because of fears about confidentiality or possibly a lack of detailed consent. To enlighten experiential medical education, responsibilities should be placed on all three relevant parties.

Firstly, is not a “donor card” system long overdue in education? By that I mean patients attending clinics are warned in advance of a trainee's potential presence, and the onus is put on them to opt out of the process. Currently patients are usually asked (rather embarrassingly) in clinics if they mind a trainee being present. This system could be effected by simple changes in consent procedures.

Educationalists could help the process by enhancing the status and esteem of both the patient and the trainee. Surprisingly, patients tend to accept a trainee's presence in a consultation if they are addressed as student doctor or trainee doctor, as opposed to medical student. Simple semantics may help quell patients' fears that they will be seen by a scruffy, disinterested youth who may well later report their intimacies in the bar.

Trainees themselves could counteract stereotypes by making a greater effort to appear interested, smart, and punctual—all in line with their new “student doctor” status.