How do medical teachers address the problem of transfer?

Clinical teachers often complain that medical students have forgotten or somehow lost knowledge that has been taught at pre-clinical levels at the time of entering the clinical part of education. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore, whether transfer of knowledge was identified as a problem by the teaching staff of anatomy and surgery, and if so, what strategies they used to overcome it. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten medical teachers in anatomy and surgery. Most teachers recognised that there was a problem of transfer and some individuals had adopted strategies to address this. However, there was no formal educational strategy suggested to overcome the problem of transfer. The conclusion is that transfer needs to be addressed both by basic science teachers and clinical teachers. There is a need for a mutual educational discourse of the contexts students will face.