engleski

Self-perceived preparedness of senior medical students in Croatia for standalone medical practice

Background: Medical faculties in Croatia started the process of reforming their curricula in order to harmonize their programs with EU countries. The framework for reforms was given in 2008, when the Clinical Skills and Knowledge Catalogue was introduced at medical faculties all around the country. Summary of work: There are no previous systematic studies evaluating the practical part of medical education in Croatia. Therefore a self-grading survey on 519/710 fourth to sixth year medical students at three out of four medical faculties was carried out to determine their experience and self-perceived competence for basic procedural skills and emergencies. Summary of results: A positive progress in hands- on experience with procedural skills over the undergraduate studies was found, but the majority of students felt they had failed to achieve competences in at least several of the questioned skills. Despite the fact that the airway management and questioned emergencies are being predominantly practiced on models and mannequins, some students still reported no experience. Conclusions: Current clinical skills’ training at all medical faculties has to be improved towards building a structured program that would ensure equal opportunity for each student to acquire basic skills. Take-home messages: Joint work and consistency among guidelines, in agreement with EU guidelines, could be used for the ongoing reform in Croatia. We suggest our survey as a baseline measurement that could be repeated in the future to control the effect of reforms.

standalone medical practice

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