ABSTRACT

The students in Anatomy and Physiology were looking forward to their first contact with the work of clinical medicine, in the fourth year of the course. The students' initial exposure to clinical work therefore suggested itself as a likely point for the examination of the development of students' views on the nature of medical work, and their perceptions of the various clinical specialties. Although the author shows that it was relatively straightforward to be granted permission to attend clinical teaching periods, this did not mean that his day-to-day presence on the wards was unproblematic. As author field work got under way, it became apparent that the distinctive styles of the individual clinical units, and the contrasts between them was an emergent and dominating theme in students' discussions and their preoccupations. For his first unit in medicine, he had already made contact with some of the staff members, via introductions from another member of the medical school staff.