Knowledge and skills in community oriented medical education (COME) self-ratings of medical undergraduates in Karachi.
OBJECTIVE
To assess the satisfaction of medical students regarding community oriented knowledge and skills that are proposed to be part of the current undergraduate medical curriculum.


METHODS
Competencies listed in the regulations for medical education designed by the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) were used to develop a self-administered questionnaire. Using the questionnaire 220 final year students of 3 public sector medical schools self-rated the knowledge and skills that should be part of the curriculum. For analysis the questions were grouped into courses of Basic, Clinical and Community Health Sciences. Students ranked their perceptions on a Likert scale of 0-4 for each question. Descriptive analysis was done to calculate the proportion of satisfied and dissatisfied students using the median of the highest possible score as the cut off.


RESULTS
The analysis of knowledge gained found a greater proportion of satisfied students with the Basic (55.9%) and Clinical Sciences (50.9%) courses than the Community Health Sciences course (45.5%). Analysis of skills acquired uniformly showed a low percentage of satisfied students for Basic (39.1%), Clinical (29.7%) and Community Health Sciences (19.1%). The proportion of students dissatisfied with their knowledge and skills for different courses ranged from 38.2-85%.


CONCLUSIONS
Students perceive that current medical school curricula are unable to meet the required standards. Proper implementation of community oriented curricula is the first step towards effective health care provision.
Aziz
Ayesha
A
Department of Community Health Sciences, Aga Khan University, Karachi.
Kazi
Ambreen
A
Jahangeer
Ashraf
A
Fatmi
Zafar
Z
D002983:Clinical Competence; D003153:Community Health Services; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate; D005180:Faculty, Medical; D006801:Humans; D019359:Knowledge; D010154:Pakistan; D011320:Primary Health Care; D012577:Schools, Medical; D012647:Self-Assessment; D013337:Students, Medical; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013663:Teaching