To explore the main factors affecting the teaching effect of diagnostics practice and the feasible improvement methods.

A total of 277 undergraduate clinical medicine students in grade 2018 who were practicing in diagnostics in Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University from January to December 2020 were selected to investigate the practice difficulties and teaching improvement requirements.

A total of 248 valid questionnaires were obtained. The main reasons that influence the practice effect were as follows: theoretical content of experimental diagnostics was hard to be remembered (170/248, 68.55%); students did not know how to communicate with patients (146/248, 58.87%) and what kind of questions should be included (130/248, 52.42%) in medical history collection section; basic theory of electrocardiogram was hard to understand (154/248, 62.10%); having no idea of how to use the theoretical knowledge learned to do the case analysis (137/248, 55.24%) and missing important information while doing the exercises (133/248, 53.63%) in case analysis. Suggestions for teaching improvement were as follows: in-class (152/248, 61.29%) and after-class (171/248, 68.95%) exercises were expected to add in the part of experimental diagnostics, in-class simulation exercises were expected to add (187/248, 75.40%) in the part of medical history collection, basic knowledge was expected to explain before class (135/248, 54.44%) and providing after-class video of electrocardiogram reading explanation (144/248, 58.06%) in the part of electrocardiogram, student-centered case analysis exercises was expected to add in class (163/248, 65.73%) in case analysis part. There were no statistically significant differences between boys and girls in all investigation results.

Factors that influence the practice teaching effect in different chapters of diagnostics are variant. The multi-integrated teaching system can make full use of the advantages of various teaching methods and improve the teaching quality and effect of diagnostic practice.