Asian Journal of Education and Training

Appropriately designed educational programmes would help medical students gain confidence and mitigate fears of internship. The aim of this pilot study is to compare the preparedness of interns for hospital practice before and after attending a two-day “Interns Orientation Programme”. A small batch of interns in a tertiary care teaching hospital were administered with “Interns Preparedness for Hospital Practice” questionnaire before and after a two-day orientation programme and the results were compared. The difference in the mean scores of the preparedness for hospital practice in the chosen areas of orientation programme among all the interns were found to be higher and hence the overall preparedness of the interns after the orientation programme was found to be higher which was statistically significant (P<0.001). Assessing the preparedness of interns will help the medical schools to develop necessary training strategies to prepare the interns mentally and professionally ready for hospital practice during their internship. Appropriate selection of content areas for preparing the interns and mode of training them is also essential before they take up their internship.