The Influence of Foreign Language Instruction on History-Taking Skills in Primary Care

Aim: This study aimed to investigate the impact of foreign language acquisition on medical students' history-taking skills in primary care, which is an essential component of undergraduate medical education, and identify any disparities between native language-trained and foreign language-trained medical students. Methods: This study, which involved 136 first-year Turkish medical students, was carried out in two groups with different mediums of instruction: English and Turkish. An Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) was performed to evaluate history-taking skills. The obtained scores were subjected to statistical analysis using Student's t-test. Results: The study compared the duration of history taking and exam scores of students in two groups. There was no significant difference in the performance of both groups (p=0.506; p=0.831). The average grade of female students in Group I was significantly higher than the male students in the same group (p=0.036), thereby demonstrating a notable gender-based disparity. Conclusion: The study revealed that learning a foreign language doesn't significantly impact medical students' history-taking skills, preserving their general competence. This has the potential to prompt alterations in primary care training, hence facilitating the development of future multinational initiatives. Keywords: medical history taking, medical education, primary health care, undergraduate medical education