Surgical Training of Undergraduate Students at Mosul College of Medicine: A Preliminary Evaluation

Abstract

Background: There is an idea that the level of medical college graduates is less than the expected. The improvement of medical training level for the undergraduates in medical schools need a re-evaluation and improvement for creation of new training programs including a better surgical training. Objective: Is to evaluate the clinical surgical training of undergraduates at College of Medicine , University of Mosul . Participants and methods: The study carried out at College of Medicine , University of Mosul during the year 2019. The study depends on questionnaire directed to 46 final year students who recently finished their clinical surgical training, 53 resident doctors graduated from the same college working among surgical wards, and 50 surgical department teachers and expert surgeons interested in medical education. The questionnaire asked about : does the student gain sufficient knowledge and clinical surgical skills during training, does the training provide safe doctor in work, does the training provide proper communication skills and ability to work properly in teams, and does the graduate able to gain the confidence of patients and other health workers. The participants score freely their answer in grade extend from 1-10, and asked to add any other notes up on surgical training of students including deleting or adding or any other suggestion. Results: Knowledge gaining mean score by medical students, resident doctors, and expert surgeons was 6.9 ±1.45 , 6.68 ± 1.82 & 6.68 ± 1.95 respectively, while mean score for providing safe doctor to community was 6.04 ± 1.39 , 6.52 ± 1.40 & 6.17 ± 1.17 respectively. On the other hand the mean score gaining regarding communication skills and ability to work in teams was 6.30 ± 1.44 , 6.37 ± 1.41 & 6.59 ± 1.13 respectively, while gaining the confidence of patients and other health workers mean score was 6.47 ± 1.18 , 6.74± 1.45 and 6.66 ± 0.99 respectively. In all , there was no significant differences. The clinical surgical skills gaining mean score by medical students , resident doctors and expert surgeons was 6.26± 1.61 , 4.92 ± 1.70 , and 5.8 ± 1.84 respectively. Which reflect the presence of a significant differences between resident doctors in comparison to students and expert surgeons. Conclusion: There is lower mean score in gaining clinical surgical skills of graduates and there is a need for more clinical training, improvement, development of clinical training, and a re-evaluation of clinical training to improve the quality of medical teaching to get competent graduates.