Challenges Facing Medical Residents' Satisfaction in the Middle East: A Report From United Arab Emirates

Abstract

Phenomenon: Medical residents' satisfaction with the quality of training for medical residency training specialists is one of the core measures of training program success. It will also therefore contribute to the integrity of healthcare in the long run. Yet there is a paucity of research describing medical residents' satisfaction in the Middle East, and there are no published studies that measure the satisfaction of medical residents trained within the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This makes it difficult to develop a quality residency training program that might meet the needs of both physicians and society. Approach: The authors designed a questionnaire to assess medical residents' satisfaction with the Dubai residency training program in order to identify insufficiencies in the training, clinical, and educational aspects. The survey was a self-report questionnaire composed of different subscales covering sociodemographic and educational/academic profile of the residents along with their overall satisfaction of their training, curriculum, work environment, peer teamwork, and their personal opinion on their medical career. Findings: Respondents showed a substantial level of satisfaction with the residency training. The vast majority of residents (80%, N = 88) believe that their residency program curriculum and rotation was “good,” “very good,” or “excellent.” Areas of dissatisfaction included salary, excessive paperwork during rotations, and harassment. Insights: This is the first report that studies the satisfaction of medical residents in all specialties in Dubai, UAE. Our findings provide preliminary evidence on the efficiency of different modifications applied to the residency program in UAE. To our knowledge, there has not been any previous study in the Middle East that has analyzed this aspect of medical residents from different specialties. The authors believe that this report can be used as a baseline to monitor the effectiveness of interventions applied in the future toward improving residency training programs in this region.