Fieldwork as a bridge between lectures and clinical clerkship: Medical students become the observer‐as‐participant

In this article, we report on a practical program in which medical students undertake participant observation in community medicine before clinical clerkship. Since 2011, Tottori University Faculty of medicine has offered a community medicine practice to all fourth-year medical students before clinical clerkship. The outline of this program is as follows: (1) orientation at the university, (2) clinical session in large- and medium-sized...