Attitude, perception, and feedback of graduate medical students on teaching-learning methodology in pathology courses: A call for curricular modernization in Morocco.

Abstract

The difficulty of understanding the pathology courses and the student's dissatisfaction with the pathology modules is a universal problem. The principal aim of our survey was to assess the perception and satisfaction of teaching pathology by graduate medical students from nine Moroccan faculties of medicine. This study was conducted among graduate medical students regarding their preferences in pathology teaching modalities, their satisfaction with the current lecture-based courses, their perception of pathology as a specialty, and their thoughts on whether and how such curricula should be modernized. A qualitative and comparative analysis was performed. The differences in modalities of teaching used were investigated. We received 274 completed surveys from graduate Moroccan medical students. Seventy-five (27.9 %) students were dissatisfied with the actual lecture-based courses. A total of 131 students (48.5%) considered that the methodology of teaching and learning used in their faculty is insufficient for learning, understanding, and memorizing pathology courses. Additionally, 233 students (86.3 %) considered that the curriculum should be modernized. The majority supported the implementation of case reports (74%), hospital-based rotation in the pathology department (68.7%), and virtual slides (60%) as the most preferred didactic methods. This survey based-study highlighted the limits of the current pathology teaching curriculum in Morocco, insufficiently in line with the aspirations of students. Furthermore, students' responses regarding their knowledge of the pathology laboratory functioning as well as their opinions toward considering pathology as a future career were very surprising, converging toward a huge lack of attractiveness of this discipline.