Private hospital clinical attachment and teaching program for medical students : Our experience and challenges

Calvary Health Care, Hobart, is in the exclusive position of being one of the few private hospitals that provide clinical placements to medical students in Australia. This offers a unique opportunity to investigate workplace learning opportunities for medical students within the private health care setting. The aim of the paper is to demonstrate the unique and valuable educational experiences that can be offered to medical students within the private health care setting. This paper also highlights the challenges and potential solutions to student placement in the private healthcare setting. Finally, this paper aims to present evaluation from the student’s perspective, in regard to work place learning and supervision for clinical attachment in the private health setting. This paper describes the conceptual understanding, design, development, delivery and evaluation of a clinical placement for students within private healthcare setting. This paper highlights the difficulties and challenges faced such as staffing arrangement, expectation of students and teachers as well as the organisation, and finally the variability in the teaching provided due to varying workload during different times of the year. This paper provides a discussion regarding student feedback. Finally, this paper provides tips for other organisations aiming to deliver workplace teaching in the private health setting.