Students perspective on attendance monitoring in undergraduate obstetrics and gynecology

The license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Dear editor We read with great interest the article by Deane and Murphy 1 regarding student and staff experiences of attendance monitoring in undergraduate obstetrics and gynecology (OBG). We agree with the findings of this cross-sectional survey, which show that attendance monitoring was acceptable to both staff and students. 1 Student attendance is considered a vital aspect to professional development. Furthermore, studies have demonstrated a positive correlation between student attendance and academic performance in both clinical-and tutorial-based learning environments. 2 As fifth-year medical students having just finished our OBG placement at Imperial College London, we were also subjected to attendance monitoring and the use of logbooks. Deane and Murphy 1 found that, although students found monitoring attendance to be acceptable, attendance was only of value at " educationally beneficial " activities. Our experiences during our OBG placement were similar, with most students attending when they felt their attendance would benefit their learning. Although monitoring attendance may contribute to a student's personal and professional development, it raises practicality questions for both students and staff. This study used a paper-based system of monitoring attendance, whereby students obtained staff signatures for each activity attended in a paper logbook. Despite this extra administrative burden, the study found that both students and staff " did not regard completing logbooks as an excessive burden ". We also found this to be the case from our experiences with logbooks during our OBG placement – students rarely encounter issues with obtaining signatures from staff members. One important difference to note is how Imperial College London uses logbooks to monitor our attendance. Rather than requiring a signature for each attendance, as in this study, we are required to record our learning experiences from each clinical experience in our logbook. Our lead consultant for the placement then reads over these entries twice (once midway through and again at the end of the placement), and " signs us off " if we have demonstrated suitable attendance. Another difference between this study and our experiences is the format of the logbook. Whereas this study used paper logbooks, Imperial College London uses electronic logbooks via an iPad given to each student by the University. Our logbooks also contain sections for notes and student reflections, as well as sign-off forms for clinical competency skills. In …