Regresar

Assessment of the quality of clinical fields for undergraduate medical education in Mexico

Abstract:

Introduction: Medical student training is dynamic and multifactorial. It requires continuing education and training under the tutelage of a clinic professor, who will guide the student to develop optimal potential. The objective of this study was to design and validate a tool to measure student perception on the learning quality of clinical rotations. Material and methods: The study is quantitative, observational, descriptive, prospective, and cross-sectional. The study sample was consisted of 148 fifth-year medical students from a private university in northern Mexico. A 30 item questionnaire was developed to assess quality of clinical stewardships in three variables: structure, tutoring, and teaching-learning process. A five-level Likert scale from 1, absolutely disagree, to 5, absolutely agree, was used. The study used item analysis to estimate internal consistency, as well as ANOVA, Tukey and descriptive statistics to assess the tendencies by factors and stewardship. Results: Cronbach alpha was 0.9549. The structure factor mean was 3.64, tutoring 4.03, and teaching-learning process 4.18. Paediatrics received the most favourable evaluation by obtaining a significant difference in the element structure (P =.008) and tutoring (P =.003). Discussion: Even though the mean observed among tutoring and teaching-learning process indicates an adequate level of student perception, under the analysis per field, a significant variation was found in the quality of learning experience. As an academic institution, this is a concern because students are not acquiring or developing the same level of skills in all stewardships.