ABSTRACT
A practice attachment could be defined broadly as a period of 'real practice' learning, when the curriculum might comprise aspects of whatever the supervising clinician is doing. Clinical supervision is a form of apprenticeship training, as learners gain from observing and doing things in the real world. This chapter assumes that it is better to learn without making mistakes that might affect patient care outcomes, and then guided learning is better than independent learning. It knows that different learners have different learning styles and come to learning with different prior experiences and levels of knowledge. Learning, in the context of medical education, is more than the acquisition of knowledge, skills and attitudes. The nature of practice attachments is broadening as educational organisations shift the emphasis of their teaching and learning away from in-patient hospital facilities towards the community. Australian research evidence suggests that good teaching slows doctors down by 25-30".
