Educating Medical Students for Practice in a Changing Landscape: An Analysis of Public Health Topics within Current Indonesian Medical Programs.

Nurhira Abdul Kadir,Heike Schütze,Kathryn M Weston

doi:10.3390/ijerph182111236

Abstract

Medical curricula need to prepare doctors for emerging health issues and increased public health roles. With medical schools spread over a vast geographical region of Indonesia, ensuring that all schools meet appropriate standards in the quality of subjects, course delivery, and performance is challenging. This paper explores the inclusion of public health subjects in medical education across the country. A search of all subjects (n = 388) who were taught in 28 representative medical schools was undertaken and categorized by geographical region, accreditation grade, and according to the Indonesian National Standard of Medical Competency. Basic biomedicine subjects had the highest representation in the curricula (49.2 ± 8.7%) and public health was generally well represented (14.3 ± 5.0%). All medical schools complied with the minimum of 144 credits required for the bachelor stage. No statistically significant difference was found between school accreditation grades, or when an overall comparison of programs in Eastern and Western regions was undertaken. The Indonesian medical schools included have relatively good curriculum transparency, and public health is an important feature in their curricula. Further research is critical to identify the materials taught, the relevance and the applicability of the specific public health content, and the assessment of public health competency of graduates.

Highlights

Medical doctors are integral to healthcare systems in many ways; they contribute as clinicians and evidence-based practitioners, and as leaders, advocates, and health system reformists, working to improve health care provision and equity [1,2].Within the broad sphere of public and population health, medical doctors play a key role at the local and community level in disease prevention and health promotion, as well as being influential at a national or administration level through direct involvement in the development of policy [3,4]
Our findings show that Indonesia has done well in terms of the proportion of public health subjects taught in the curricula, with up to one-third of the curriculum content being filled by public health and related topics, regardless of the accreditation grade or geographical location of the school
This finding demonstrates that public health is considered an important feature in the Indonesian medical curricula, and that the directions to include such material are being accommodated by medical school academics

Summary

Introduction

Within the broad sphere of public and population health, medical doctors play a key role at the local and community level in disease prevention and health promotion, as well as being influential at a national or administration level through direct involvement in the development of policy [3,4]. Their roles and responsibilities are increased during times of national and global public health threats, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic, as doctors are expected to be flexible and adaptable and to take on increased workloads and responsibilities, including public health aspects of disease prevention and mitigation, outbreak management, and other public health roles [5].

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Conclusion