[Is it Possible to Arouse Interest in a Career in Traumatology with a Curricular Course in Medical School?]

[The surgeon's balancing act-Teaching in the clinical routine]

BACKGROUND

Thus medical students must be inspired to undertake this specialty. Students complain that the teaching is subordinate to patient care and limited by a lack of time and medical personnel. Although there are many studies assessing student perceptions, few exist that focus on the issues that teachers face.

OBJECTIVE

To analyse student teaching in the daily routine and its potential' problems from the surgeon's perspectives.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

In this prospective study guidelines for semistructured interviews with formulated, open questions were created, which were specified with further questions. All interviews were conducted using these guidelines and recorded. The number of interviews were a function of the concept of content saturation.

RESULTS

All 22 participants perceived that the teaching in clinical practice is of paramount importance. Nevertheless, respondents described that learning goals in the clinical routine are not always achieved. The main reason is a lack of time; however, as clinical experience increases other factors will similarly become more important: Consultants and heads of departments complain about deficiencies in students' previous knowledge, including insufficient motivation. Most respondents described that they do not feel appreciated for teaching. Overall, student teaching was perceived as an additional burden but all respondents found the task to be extremely worthwhile.

CONCLUSION

In addition to the lack of personnel, a lack of appreciation is the most significant obstacle towards effective teaching. It is therefore important to increase the value of teaching by rewarding good achievements and the creation of effective transparency.

Mentored undergraduate operating room teaching during the orthopedic trauma curriculum-No evidence of gender differences

BACKGROUND

In many surgical disciplines, the interest among medical students to pursue a surgical career decreases during their medical studies. The same goes for students after graduation. The aim of our cohort study was to evaluate the operating room (OR) experiences of medical students during our curriculum.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Over the course of one year 217 senior year medical students were included in our study. All of them took part in our training program for senior year medical students, which consisted of a 1-week clinical rotation including visits to the OR. We developed a Likert-scaled questionnaire, which was evaluated anonymously; free text answers were also possible.

RESULTS

Prior to the analysis of the sex and age differences, we confirmed that the evaluation scale provided a coherent measure of the OR evaluation. As a first proxy, we conducted a series of Spearman correlations which revealed high intercorrelations between all of the six items of the questionnaire, r(154) = 0.53 to r(154) = 0.94, all p < 0.001. These high intercorrelations transferred into a very high consistency of the six questions that evaluate the OR teaching; Cronbach's α = 0.95. There was no main effect of sex, F (1,146) = 2.19, p = 0.141. However, there was a main effect of age, F (2,146) = 3.75, p = 0.026, indicating that older participants evaluated the OR teaching more positively. Finally, there was no correlation between sex and age group, F (2,146) < 1, indicating that the effect of age on the evaluation score was equally pronounced for female and male participants.

DISCUSSION

The aim of this study was to answer the question how mentored OR teaching during the orthopedic trauma curriculum is evaluated by medical students, and whether there are gender-specific differences. For this purpose we prospectively evaluated senior year medical students over a period of 12 months during the orthopedic trauma curriculum with questionnaires. The medical students rated the mentored OR visits mainly positive.

CONCLUSION

Previously published literature as well as our presented data indicate that the interest of medical students in starting a surgical career can only be increased if negative influencing factors are reduced. This includes especially positive communication with medical students and in daily professional interaction.

A nationwide survey of undergraduate training in oral and maxillofacial surgery

PURPOSE

To investigate the current status of undergraduate training in oral and maxillofacial (OMF) surgery in Germany using a nationwide survey and hence contribute to an educational improvement in the field.

METHODS

A 39-item questionnaire was sent to all university clinics with an OMF surgery chair in Germany (n = 34).

RESULTS

Ninety-two percent of OMF clinics are involved in the curricular training in medicine and 100% in dentistry. Eighty-one percent of OMF clinics perform curricular examinations and, respectively, 86% in dentistry. Examinations are mainly performed written with multiple-choice tests (62% medicine, 76% dentistry) and using non-structured oral examinations (57% medicine, 86% dentistry). Objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs) are only used in 19% of all faculties.

CONCLUSION

OMF surgery with its involvement both in medical and dental education has a special position as a surgical discipline. Our results show that OMF as a specialty is underrepresented in dental and especially in medical education considering the numerical and health economic importance of OMF consultations. Enhancing curricular integration and developing more structured examination forms is necessary to guarantee a high quality of OMF education.