Artikel
Influence of undergraduate medical education on postgraduate medical specialization
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Autoren
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Diana Grasreiner
- Universitätsklinikum Jena, Allgemein-, Viszeral- und Gefäßchirurgie -Experimentelle Transplantationschirurgie-, Jena, Deutschland
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Uta Dahmen
- Universitätsklinikum Jena, Allgemein-, Viszeral- und Gefäßchirurgie -Experimentelle Transplantationschirurgie-, Jena, Deutschland
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Utz Settmacher
- Universitätsklinikum Jena, Allgemein-, Viszeral- und Gefäßchirurgie -Experimentelle Transplantationschirurgie-, Jena, Deutschland
| Veröffentlicht: | 21. April 2016 |
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Gliederung
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Background: The number of practicing surgeons will decrease according to expected demographic changes. In contrast the number of surgeons needed will increase due to the higher demands of ageing population. This development can cause a deficit in surgical care for the population.
In addition the students’ interest in selecting surgery for their postgraduate specialization is also declining. However the factors influencing the selection of the postgraduate medical specialization of German medical students are not well understood.
This study aims at investigating the reasons for selecting a given postgraduate specialization. The main focus is on the influence of medical education on the postgraduate specialization and the factors for selecting surgery.
Materials and methods: We designed a cross-sectional online questionnaire. It consisted of 4 parts exploring, (1) preferred postgraduate specialization, (2) preferred format of medical education, (3) socio-demographic data, (4) a learning type test (HALB-test), differentiating between 4 learning types (visual, auditive, reading, trying out).
The survey generated with the tool SoSciSurvey® was distributed electronically over an e-mail distributor to all students from Jena Medical School in June 2014 as well as through students` Facebook groups of their study year respectively.
The data was analysed using SPSS® 22 for descriptive statistics, Chi-square-tests and Mann-Whitney-U-tests. The p value lower than 0,05 was set to be significant.
Results: The response rate was 20% (325/1625). Half of the participants were interested in internal medicine, 20% in surgical fields, 10% in neuroscience and diagnostics. About 20% of the participants were undecided.
Reasons for the selection of a surgical specialty were the prestige of surgery, the career opportunities and the patient contacts. Reasons against the selection of a surgical specialty were the heavy workload, poor reconciliation of family and job duties and the duration of the surgical residency.
The preferred format of medical education was beside teaching followed by SkillsLab (practical courses). The preferred teaching format of students selecting surgery as their preferred postgraduate specialization was well supervised hands-on training in small groups.
Formats of medical education which were not preferred were “university lecture as online video” and “online course with the opportunity to ask questions”.
Subjects with a strong influence on the decision to select surgery for postgraduate training were anatomy, surgery and orthopaedics as well as the practical training during the pre-clinical phase and the surgical block training. The subjects psychology, general medicine, psychotherapy and psychosomatics only had a very low influence on the decision to select surgery as postgraduate specialisation.
The learning type test showed that students preferring surgery as their later specialty were predominately of the visual learning type.
Conclusion: Teaching formats such as practical video-controlled courses could address the visual learning type better. Based on our results this might increase the students` interest in pursuing surgery as postgraduate specialization.
