Self-assessment of medical graduates 2017 readiness for medical practice

• Oxana A. Gatsura
• Sergey V. Gatsura
• Maychuk E.Yu.

Abstract

Investigation of professional skills self-confidence and self-perception of general readiness to start inde­pendent practice was conducted among 199 final year medical students of Moscow State University of Medi­cine and Dentistry named after A.I. Evdokimov in November-December 2016. Russian translation of anony­mous questionnaire developed by Serbian researchers (Gazibara T. et al., 2015) was used. The scale included 21 questions regarding perceived confidence in specific clinical skills plus 1 question about general readiness of respondents to start working (using 10 points scale), basic demography and average academic grades data. The results were processed by Statistica 13.2 software. Russian version of the questionnaire showed high reli­ability (α=0.89) quite identical to the original one. The highest possible score of confidence (10 out of 10) received arterial pulse measurement, blood pressure registration and intramuscular injection performance. The students were least confident (3 out of 10) about wound suturing, urinary catheter placing and digital rectal examination. Self-perception of manual skills did not correlate with academic performance whereas cognitive skills score displayed statistically significant direct correlation with students' average grades (ρ=0.50). Analy­sis of the whole questionnaire revealed that academic achievements positively and statistically significantly (р<0.05) correlated with total confidence score (ρ=0.20) and perceived readiness to work (ρ=0.14). Average level of self-perceived readiness of our respondents to start working with patients was 5 out of 10. Timely and targeted development of practical skills problematic for medical students is suggested.

Keywords:practical skills, readiness to work, medical education, anonymous questionnaire

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