Community medicine: perceptions among medical students and career preference: a cross sectional study

Abstract

Background: Learning community medicine helps the student not only to become a good clinician but also a good manager, educator and a researcher. Community medicine exposes medical students to primary and secondary healthcare settings and to promotive, preventive, curative and rehabilitative health services. This helps them to serve the needy people with a holistic approach. The objective is to find the perceptions of medical students regarding Community Medicine as a Medical Subject and as a career preference. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted over a period of 2 months. It was conducted on 200 students of Final year part I of MBBS in a tertiary care hospital by using universal sampling method. Data was collected from all the students using a self-administered pre-tested questionnaire using Likert’s scale. Results: Total 212 students participated in this study out of which 125 were boys and 87 were girls. The perceptions of students about community medicine were that this field gives an overall view of community’s medical needs. Curriculum is too vast and needs to be modified. More research should be done in community. Teaching methodology should be modified for making topics interesting. More number of girls was interested in taking community medicine as a career. Conclusions: Students perceptions regarding the field of community medicine showed that community medicine is essential for successful medical practice. But the teachers must make this subject more interesting by giving more practical insight and improving the teaching modalities.

Perception of community medicine as a curriculum and career option among medical students

“…14,15 In our study, 93.9% showed a positive attitude in gaining skills to understand the research in their period of CM postings same results were obtained in Sadawarte et al and they stated that this is crucial because the more innovation and enhance have conducting medical research, to better their knowledge of literature reviews, critical evaluation of research papers, and report writing. 16 Our study shows that 89.7% suggested having an understanding of concepts in CM followed by preventive measures against diseases (86.6%), the reallife health issues of the community (85%), whereas Murugavel et al reported that 83% for understanding the concepts of CM, 80.7% preventive measures against disease and 79.8% real-life health issues. 14 Communitybased learning programs that use various approaches to expose students to the structure, functioning, and perceived needs of the community may play a major impact in increasing students' enthusiasm for learning and choosing a career option.…”

Early community-based teaching of medical undergraduates for achieving better working skills in the community

“…Almost all the students stressed that more practical topics should be covered and teaching methodology needs to be modified to make the topic more interesting. [ 4 ] In this study, we found a significant increase in the understanding and interest toward the subject after giving a community exposure to the students. A significant increase in the scoring of the students with every field visit was also observed, which highlights that the community visits also help enhance the soft skills of the students like communication skills, how to elicit history, team spirit, and attitude toward the community.…”

Community medicine learning - medical student’s perspective

“…In the study by Sadawarte, majority of students (96.8%) agreed that more practical training need to be added to the curriculum. 12 This was also noted in the study on teaching methods in Community Medicine by Sharma et al where 76% of students opined that field visits are major contributing factors to enhance their practical skills. 13 This is also discussed in already published literature which stresses shifting the emphasis towards family visits, demographic and morbidity surveys, community diagnosis and research projects.…”

“…14 In the study done among medical students in Mumbai, 40% opted Community Medicine for their career, which is in contrast to the 12% in this study. 12 Murugavel et al in their study done in a Private Medical College in Chennai reported that 21.8% expressed interest in specializing in Community Medicine. 10 In a study by Kar et al, the authors reported that Community Medicine and Psychiatry were not preferred by students as their career choice and stressed upon the need to enhance the students" interest in these subjects.…”

“…This perception was much higher (96.8%) in the study done by Sadawarte in Mumbai. 12 In the study done by Murugavel, a higher proportion of students (83%) found the subject was interesting to learn. 10 This study shows that Learning Community Medicine was found to be interesting by only 55% of the students.…”