The question of dissection in medical training: Not just “if”, but “when”? A student perspective

It is perceived that negative attitudes towards mental illness in undergraduate medical students can impact student's decision in choosing psychiatry as a medical career. Improvement in psychiatry placements for undergraduate medical students can result in changing student's attitude towards psychiatry as a career choice. We demonstrate how students’ placements from various medical schools at a major psychiatric hospital contributed towards enhancing student's interest towards psychiatry. Medical students who had their placement over the last one year were contacted for an anonymised student perspective survey.While majority of students did not have psychiatry as their potential career choice before they started their placements more than two third rated psychiatry as a potential career choice based on their experience from the placements. This encouraged us to improve the placement standards based on student's perspective. Students suggested that more use of medical training in psychiatry, improvement in teaching and placement standards and more psychiatry placements before specialised training can contribute towards making psychiatry as one of the popular career choices. Student's preferred interactive teaching sessions including case based discussions and informal teaching sessions during ward rounds and clinics. Overall students found their placements helpful but more so to perform well in their examinations as compared to coverage of full psychiatry curriculum.It is planned to conduct the survey again after necessary changes based on student's perspective to evaluate whether further improvement in placements can continue in contributing towards increasing medical recruitment in psychiatry.

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“DETERMINANTS OF ACADEMIC SATISFACTION OF NEUROSURGERY RESIDENTS -BASED ON A CROSS SECTIONAL QUESTIONNAIRE SURVEY IN KERALA."

10.36106/ijar/4004429 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1-4

Author(s):

Vinu. V. Gopal ◽

P. K. Balakrishnan

Keyword(s):

Surgical Training ◽

Medical Training ◽

Clinical Care ◽

Student Perspective ◽

Senior Faculty ◽

Management Decisions ◽

Cross Sectional Survey ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Academic Satisfaction ◽

Surgical Training Program

Surgical training is different from medical training where resident learns from doing surgeries and observing surgical skills from the senior faculty in addition to reading books. There is insufficient literature regarding the lacunae in current surgical training in our medical colleges. Aim of the survey is to identify the determinants of academic satisfaction of neurosurgery residents undergoing the present surgical training program in kerala.This survey determines the factors affecting academic satisfaction from a student perspective which will definitely be an eye opener regarding the benefits as well as drawbacks of the present curriculum in Kerala. MATERIALS AND METHODS A descriptive cross sectional survey of neurosurgery residents was done using a prevalidated questionnaire and send by email . It covered demographics ,the overall satisfaction and variables related to aspects of residency training like 1)surgery related 2)clinical care related 3) education related variables which are collected on a 5 point leikert score scale and scored. Responses obtained were enterd in SPSS data sheet and analysed . RESULTS The response rate was 60% .The average age of surgery residents in our survey was 30.4±2.59 years,majority being males (83%).Majority(41.7%) of residents who participated and responded to the survey were satisfied with the current surgical training. The residents were more satisfied if 1)faculty allowed residents to perform the important steps in the operations but without being overly supervised (p=0.049) 2)if they scrubbed more than 25 cases last month(p=.011); and 3) if they involve with the faculty in management decisions.(p=.032). CONCLUSION: The survey highlighted that faculty should support and give residents freedom to share a keyrole in patient management decisions .Improving resident satisfaction may help encourage more medical students to enter neurosurgical profession.Present survey will definetly guide curriculum management committees in health universities

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