A review of the use of technology for pedagogical purposes by students in clinical placement

Purpose: Technology is now ubiquitous and with a wide range of clinical and pedagogical applications. This study sought to assess students’ use of technology on clinical placement to facilitate supporting its use.

Method: A questionnaire based review asking questions of medical, and physician associate, students at the University of Sheffield.

Results: All responding students had smartphones and utilised technology. The sites and apps used were a wider range than we were aware of raising questions of how we support students if we are ignorant of their preferred sources. There were both positive and negative perceptions of the use of mobile technology by supervisors despite the known widespread use of technology by healthcare professionals.

Conclusion: Barriers still exist to the use of the available technologies, in particular supervisor and patient perceptions, which need to be overcome to realise the full potential of technology with some key steps that can be taken to help do this.