Australian medical students have fewer opportunities to do physical examination of peers of the opposite gender

Study design

It is a cross sectional study.

Subjects

Total 538 University of New South Wales (UNSW) Medicine preclinical undergraduate students completing their exposure to PPE in November 2012 were invited to participate in the research. In PPE sessions, students were free to choose their partner of either gender, and worked in these pairs within small groups. An online questionnaire was delivered immediately after the sessions, and there were 130 valid responses (24.2%). This response rate allows for descriptive statistics mainly focusing on chi-square statistics for measuring differences in distributions across groups [12]. Of the respondees, 74 were female (56.9%) and 56 (43.1%) male; 21 reported their outlook to be conservative (16.2%), 35 (26.9%) liberal, and 74 (56.9%) average.

Instrument

Participants used our tool, the Student Peer Physical Examination Experience Questionnaire (SPPEEQ), to rate by how much they perceived their examination skills improved through participation, as well as their comfort when participating for 12 body parts (Supplement 1). The SPPEEQ also elicited students’ self-perception of their ‘outlook’ on a scale of conservativism to liberalism to capture students’ personal perspective of socio-cultural factors which may shape their attitude generally and influence their actions and behaviour. It is important that this was a measure of self-perception in comparison to others, that is, it is deliberately subjective, referencing self against peers. Reliability for the tool could not be measured, since no internal consistency across items was anticipated. Generating ≥5 items per attitude measured was not feasible thus we rely upon face validity, supported by similar items used in the literature [13]. Variables employed in analysis were derived, thus:

Outlook: Responses to the question ‘In relation to the average student (whatever you consider that to be) do you think your outlook is…’ were:

Cross tabs [12] were performed between gender and the students’ outlook in order to check for significant gender variation in the outlook groups.

No opportunity to examine: This novel variable was derived from perception of improvement data, since initial analysis revealed no findings relating to perceptions of improvement in skills. Data recorded for responses to the questions ‘How much did examining a (male/female) peer improve your physical examination skills for the following regions of the body or body systems?’ was recoded, such that responses ‘a lot,’ ‘some,’ ‘a little,’ and ‘none’ were taken as the student had had an opportunity to examine a peer. Responses ‘refused’ and ‘no opportunity’ were taken as the student had no opportunity to examine a peer.

Procedure

A pilot study run in order to test feasibility of this questionnaire as an online survey instrument, elicited responses from eight students. These were not recorded and are not part of the data analysed. Minor changes to wording of some items were made in response to feedback during piloting.

Statistical analysis

Analysis was conducted using IBM SPSS Statistics ver. 23.0 (IBM Co., Armonk, NY, USA). Descriptive statistics [14] were derived for the population sampled and the variables employed in analysis, namely, gender, outlook, and frequency of ‘no opportunity to examine’. The latter was derived from perception of improvement data, since initial analysis revealed no findings relating to perceptions of improvement in skills. Cross tabs [12] were performed between gender and the students’ outlook in order to check for significant gender variation in the outlook groups.

Ethical approval

This study was granted by the UNSW Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC Ref: # HC13017).

Gender

Tables 1 and 2 illustrate that students have opportunities to examine peers of the same gender. However, students have fewer opportunities to examine peers of the opposite gender and this is statistically significant for all body parts when male students examine female peers. There are body parts that show significant lack of opportunity for female students examining male peers.

Table 1.

Body part of male peer not examined by both gender preclinical undergraduate students of University of New South Wales, Australia in 2012

Table 2.

Body part of female peer not examined by both gender preclinical undergraduate students of University of New South Wales, Australia in 2012

Outlook

Cross tabs performed between gender and the students’ outlook demonstrated that there is a female predominance in all groups reasonably consistent with the total respondent population (Table 3). Student distribution by outlook was not statistically different across genders.

Table 3.

Characteristics of preclinical undergraduate students of University of New South Wales, Australia in 2012 by outlook and gender

Tables 4 and 5 illustrate that students who describe themselves as more conservative in outlook have more opportunities for examination, across both genders and despite body parts involved. However, differences between outlook groups do not reach statistical significance. Raw data of the results of SPPEEQ is available from Supplement 2.

Table 4.

Body part of male peer not examined by preclinical undergraduate students of University of New South Wales, Australia in 2012 according to their outlook

Table 5.

Body part of female peer not examined by preclinical undergraduate students of University of New South Wales, Australia in 2012 according to their outlook

Gender in peer physical examination

Results show a gender discrepancy in the opportunities students have to examine each other, particularly marked with regard to male students examining female peers. Table 2 illustrates clearly that male students are disadvantaged in terms of opportunities to examine female peers, such that for each body part at least 25% of male students miss out on an opportunity to examine a female peer. This is consistent with the literature showing that same gender pairing of students for examination is more acceptable than mixed gender pairing. Indeed, we suggest that such has been the evidence for this preference that supervisors and tutors of PPE may acquiesce to student preference with the result that same gender pairing is the de facto rule, and mixed gender pairing the increasingly infrequent exception. This may occur despite ‘best practice’ recommendations that PPE should be ‘voluntary and non-coercive, practised in groups of two to five, with students able to choose their own groups or partner’ [5], advice that neither calls for, nor implies, same gender pairing of students.

Outlook and gender

Tables 4 and 5 illustrate results with regard to student outlook, and with reference to the gender of the student being examined. These were unexpected by the authors. Most notably, students who rate themselves as conservative have had the most opportunities to examine all body parts, including those body regions which students of average range and liberal outlook frequently did not have an opportunity to examine (e.g., front of chest, back of chest, abdomen, and groin). Such findings appear to be at odds with the existing literature on student religiosity and ethnicity [2,5,9,10], and the reason is uncertain. Perhaps more conservative students feel more compelled to be diligent in their approach to PPE as an instructional method and are thuus simply ‘doing as they are told’, or are more likely to provide the most desired responses (in their perception) to research questionnaires, or they are simply better at diffentiating between physical examination learning, and gender issues.

However, the main conclusion that can be drawn from these results is, again, that the ‘gender of the examinee’ is most significant in determining whether the examiner student has an opportunity to examine. Importantly, this is true across all body parts, even those that might be assumed to pose little emotional/social discomfort, since these areas are often exposed socially. For example, Table 5 shows that, taken together, 19 students (average outlook plus liberal) did not have an opportunity to examine the legs of a female peer (as compared with one of conservative outlook). In contrast, Table 4 shows that only 4 students (average outlook plus liberal) did not have an opportunity to examine the legs of a male peer (compared with two conservative outlook students). Therefore, while the outlook of the students produces some interesting results, it is the gender of the examinee that has the major bearing on how many opportunities there are to examine.

Gender interaction in peer physical examination and implications for examination of patients

Perhaps it is timely to recall the ultimate purpose of PPE: to prepare students for the physical examination of patients. Commentary has stated that students may realize through mixed gender PPE that the doctor-patient relationship is ‘sexless’ [9]. What then is the consequence when students choose to form same gender pairings for non-intimate PPE? It appears that we may have created an activity that has an unfortunate paradoxical effect, whereby mixed gender PPE becomes excessively complex, and thus avoided. With a group of young undergraduate medical students, relationships of any kind with the opposite sex (with apologies for the hetero-normativity) may be cause for them to be mixed up with concerns around sex and sexuality, and perhaps this is inevitable. Or more widely, it is possible that this phenomenon is a consequence of changing social mores and concerns around contact between people of opposite gender throughout society, where what is appropriate or inappropriate is no longer clear, even in the setting of the medical encounter. Importantly, the ultimate outcome might be that male medical students who felt ill at ease examining female peers feel more comfortable examining female patients. Yet this is not a given and they may feel even more conflicted when faced with examining female patients.

Such considerations are of serious concern. Clinical skills are developed using a staged didactic approach, involving the introduction of increasingly complex skills in a variety of settings, starting in simulated environments, including with peers, and ultimately in the real environment with patients. Yet, it is not clear how students could be trained to apply ‘sexless’ physical examination [14] when unintended gender segregation occurs in peer simulation activities, such as PPE. It may be that certain undesirable beliefs and practices about interaction are learned early on and prove difficult to unlearn at the later stages of practice with real patients. The worst possible outcome for all is that physical examination of patients is avoided.

Students employ a range of other learning activities and resources, apart from PPE, to learn the skills of physical examination, both within and without the curriculum, incentivised not only by assessment tasks but also by real or simulated patient contact [14]. Consequently, their experiences in PPE may not ultimately significantly impact on their clinical practice. However, the results of this study suggest that it is appropriate to challenge the assumption that PPE is in some way uncomplicated and straightforward (and the inherent hetero-normativity with which it, and the preceding discussion, is laden). Here, we warn against some of the potential consequences of such an assumption, because the purpose of clinical training is to prepare doctors for professional practice with all future patients, of either gender.

Limitations to the study include utilising students’ rating of ‘outlook’: findings may be considered contentious because the single measure is based on multiple subjective perceptions at one point in time. In addition, an individual’s perspective may not influence actions and behaviour in the manner expected, and/or may be entirely or partially altered by time, place and other contextual factors. Another possible limitation is that our terminology for outlook is problematic in the specific context of Australian politics, in that the Australian conservative party is named the Liberal Party and so some confusion in the minds of respondents may have occurred with regard to our use of the word ‘liberal’.

In conclusion, we found that the gender of the students participating in PPE has a strong influence over whether the examiner student will have an opportunity to conduct a physical examination on their peer. Outlook of students as gathered in this study produced some interesting results, suggesting that more conservative students may be more likely to conduct physical examinations of some body parts, but gender is the over-riding factor. These findings prompted reflection upon how we conduct PPE sessions, because they suggest that there is a need to consider whether unintentional same gender PPE may paradoxically, if unintentionally, effect an emphasis on issues around sexuality in physical examination, more than mitigate it.