Background: The Norwegian Internship Council has uncovered weaknesses associated with the compulsory practice period in hospitals for doctors, both on a national basis and for North Trøndelag County.
Material and methods: In 2007 and 2008, 79% (859) of all interns in Norwegian hospitals participated in the Council's national evaluation of the practice period. We compared the results from interns serving at hospitals in Levanger and Namsos (North Trøndelag) (n = 39) with those from interns serving at the other hospitals in Norway (n = 820).
Results: At the surgical and medical departments in Levanger, the training in clinical procedures and acute medical conditions (simulator training) was similar or better than that in the other hospitals in Norway, but the guidance given to candidates in these departments was neither considered to be especially useful (12% and 17%) nor did it focus on problems related to ethics (0-8%). In general the guidance was perceived as more useful and systematic in psychiatric wards than in somatic ones. Fewer candidates in Namsos had experience with patient rounds (69%) and writing of case reports (79%) than those in hospitals in the rest of the country, and no interns in psychiatry reported that they had received thorough training in cooperation with the primary health services or in psychopharmacology.
Interpretation: National data from the Internship Council conceal important variations between hospitals, and to be useful for local improvement work they have to be reanalysed. The identified weaknesses for interns in North Trøndelag led to implementation of new routines for guidance, training in simulation and law before start of the practice period.