RESUMO
OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the student's perspective about educational and training efficacy of workplace based learning (WBL) during surgical clerkship in Orthopaedics amongst 4th and 5th year medical students. STUDY DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. Place and Duration of the Study: Department of General Surgery, Shifa Tameer-e-Millat University, Islamabad, from September 2020 to December 2021. METHODOLOGY: The inclusion criteria was fourth and final year MBBS students who had completed their orthopaedic surgery mini-clerkship. The exclusion criteria was medical students who did not attend the orthopaedics clerkship in the study period. The research instrument was a questionnaire based on the principles of experiential based learning. The participants were sent an online questionnaire as well as a consent form through e-mail. The responses were recorded and analysed for descriptive statistics. RESULTS: From the target group, 140 responses were received, 94 students (67%) expressed that workplace environment was conducive to learning and 98 (70%) agreed that their diagnostic and management skills further developed following exposure to the orthopaedic workplace. A short duration of 2 weeks served as a hindrance with 53 (38%) of students expressing that they were not able to effectively inculcate all concepts within that limited time-frame. Moreover, 52 (37.5%) students described limited patient's clerking time. CONCLUSION: Though majority of students were satisfied with teaching and learning strategies, design and implementation of the curriculum at the orthopaedics department; yet, there were significant limitations requiring further evaluation and cooperation by both students and faculty in order to establish ecosystem focusing on experiential learning. KEY WORDS: Orthopaedics, Workplace based learning (WBL), Student, Clerkship, Learning environment.