Introduction: Patients are the key to outpatient training for medical students all around the world, and patient satisfaction with the service received increases their cooperation and improves the process of clinical training for medical students. The presence of students at clinics is vital for their training and social role. The present study mainly aims to explain the patients’ experience of the medical students’ presence throughout their visits to the training clinics affiliated with the Jahrom University of Medical Sciences.
Materials and Methods: The current research is a content analysis study. Participants included 11 patients visiting Honari and Imam Reza clinics in Jahrom chosen by purposeful sampling over May-June 2018, and data analysis was conducted using MAXQDA 10.0 software.
Results: Two main themes (patient rights and students’ rights to learning), eight main classes (privacy, adaptation plan with the opposite sex, ethnicity and culture, satisfaction, necessity of students` learning, consideration of physical and mental status of the patient, the advantages of the students’ presence in physician`s office, patients’ prior awareness of the treatment process), and 30 secondary classes were extracted which amounted to 104 semantic units.
Conclusion: Respecting the rights of both patients and students is an essential principle in clinical training that needs
to be considered from ethical and legal points of view. This will contribute significantly to the establishment and consolidation of the dialogue on the presence of students alongside the physician. Thus, the presence of the medical student can lead to both patient and student satisfaction if the aforementioned items are taken into account.