Abstract
BackgroundThe General Medical Council expects UK medical graduates to gain some statistical knowledge during their undergraduate education; but provides no specific guidance as to amount, content or teaching method. Published work on statistics teaching for medical undergraduates has been dominated by medical statisticians, with little input from the doctors who will actually be using this knowledge and these skills after graduation. Furthermore, doctor's statistical training needs may have changed due to advances in information technology and the increasing importance of evidence-based medicine. Thus there exists a need to investigate the views of practising medical doctors as to the statistical training required for undergraduate medical students, based on their own use of these skills in daily practice.MethodsA questionnaire was designed to investigate doctors' views about undergraduate training in statistics and the need for these skills in daily practice, with a view to informing future teaching. The questionnaire was emailed to all clinicians with a link to the University of East Anglia Medical School. Open ended questions were included to elicit doctors' opinions about both their own undergraduate training in statistics and recommendations for the training of current medical students. Content analysis was performed by two of the authors to systematically categorise and describe all the responses provided by participants.Results130 doctors responded, including both hospital consultants and general practitioners. The findings indicated that most had not recognised the value of their undergraduate teaching in statistics and probability at the time, but had subsequently found the skills relevant to their career. Suggestions for improving undergraduate teaching in these areas included referring to actual research and ensuring relevance to, and integration with, clinical practice.ConclusionsGrounding the teaching of statistics in the context of real research studies and including examples of typical clinical work may better prepare medical students for their subsequent career.
Highlights
The General Medical Council expects UK medical graduates to gain some statistical knowledge during their undergraduate education; but provides no specific guidance as to amount, content or teaching method
The UK General Medical Council (GMC) sets out, and periodically revises, the standards which undergraduate medical students must obtain by graduation
This includes being able to “critically appraise ... studies reported in the literature”, “formulate simple research questions ... and design appropriate studies”, and “apply findings from the literature to answer questions raised by specific clinical problems” [2]. Published accounts by those involved in teaching medical statistics [3,4] support anecdotal experience that statistics is not the most well-liked subject in the undergraduate medical curriculum and that, despite the GMC guidance, some students tend not to perceive these subjects as relevant to medical practice
Summary
The General Medical Council expects UK medical graduates to gain some statistical knowledge during their undergraduate education; but provides no specific guidance as to amount, content or teaching method. The 2009 document is no more specific about what medical students need to learn about statistics and research methods, referring to a need to “Apply to medical practice the principles, method and knowledge of population health and the improvement of health and healthcare” (section 11), and “Apply scientific method and approaches to medical research” (section 12) This includes being able to “critically appraise ... Design appropriate studies”, and “apply findings from the literature to answer questions raised by specific clinical problems” [2] Published accounts by those involved in teaching medical statistics [3,4] support anecdotal experience that statistics is not the most well-liked subject in the undergraduate medical curriculum and that, despite the GMC guidance, some students tend not to perceive these subjects as relevant to medical practice. In 1987, the GMC identified failure to recognise the relevance of teaching at the time as one of the barriers faced when teaching community medicine, including medical statistics [5]
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