Gender Difference in Self-Reported Preparedness for Clinical Practice among House Officer Junior Doctors of Al Azhar University in Cairo

Abstract

Background: the successful completion of medical school education should provide students with a level of knowledge and skills necessary to fulfill a junior doctor’s daily duties at hospital. As regard gender some researchers concluded that women outperform men in academic and clinical assessment at medical schools. There are no reasons to suppose that female students leave medical school less prepared than men for work. Aim of the work: this study aimed to clarify whether there are gender difference in house officers' view for preparedness for work or not, and to demonstrate strength and weakness points regarding their undergraduate medical education. Subjects and Methods: the current study is a cross sectional comparative one. It was conducted on 51 house officers’ (HOs) females from Al Zahraa University Hospital compared to 100 male HOs recruited from Al Hussien and Sayed Galal University Hospitals about how much they feel prepared to medical practice. All the questionarable items were arranged in 8 domains of educational goals adopted according to NARS , requirements and from ''preparedness for Hospital Practice'' survey. Results: the results showed that 96.1% of females felt sufficient preparedness for clinical work compared to 79.0% of males, 72.5% and 35.3% of females felt somewhat adequate preparedness in understanding the disease process and carrying out arterial blood gases respectively versus 40.0% and 28.0% of males while males felt adequate preparedness in all elements of interpersonal skills than females. In addition, it was found that understanding the interaction of social factors with disease, approach confidently senior staff for help in interpreting investigations, manage time effectively; score of patient management and prevention were significant predictor of preparedness for clinical work; while gender was not significant in the regression model. Conclusion: female house officers felt more sufficient well prepared than male ones. However gender was not a significant predictor of performance. More emphasis on weakness points recorded by the two groups as defect in some medical skills as write prescription, gap between knowledge and practice, bad communication with the teaching staff and dealing with patient to improve feeling of preparedness .