Exploring the views of Singapore junior doctors on medical curricula for the digital age: A case study

Abstract

This study aims to explore the perspectives of medical trainees on the impartation of digital competencies in Singapore’s medical school curricula. It also considers how the medical school experience can be strengthened in order to bridge potential gaps in the integration of these competencies in the local curricula. Findings were drawn from individual interviews with 44 junior doctors from Singapore’s public healthcare institutions including hospitals and national specialty centers. House officers and residents from different medical and surgical specialties were recruited using purposive sampling. Data was interpreted using qualitative thematic analysis. The doctors were in their first to tenth year of post-graduate training. Thirty of them graduated from the three local medical schools whereas 14 others were trained overseas. Overall, they felt insufficiently prepared to utilize digital technologies in view of their limited exposure to such technologies in medical school. Six key reasons were identified: lack of flexibility and dynamism within the curriculum, dated learning style, limited access to electronic health records, gradual uptake of digital technologies in the healthcare sector, lack of an ecosystem that promotes innovation, and lack of guidance from qualified and available mentors. Equipping medical students with skills relevant to the digital age would benefit from a concerted effort from multiple stakeholders: medical schools, medical educators and innovators, as well as the government. This study bears important implications for countries that seek to bridge the ‘transformation gap’ brought about by the digital age, which is defined as the sharp divergence between innovations that healthcare providers recognize as important but for which they feel insufficiently prepared.

Barriers to the Incorporation of Digital Health Competencies in the Medical School Curriculum: A Qualitative Study of Doctors in Organizational Leadership

“…Notwithstanding these developments, and despite being a small country with only three medical schools, it has been challenging to implement national-level initiatives and standardized learning objectives for training medical students in DHC . Furthermore, there is a disconnect between medical school training and clinical practice, as reported by the leaders of its medical schools, clinical educators and junior doctors (Zainal, 1 , et al, 2023;. Speci cally, these stakeholders shared that medical students are insu ciently prepared to utilize digital technologies in clinical practice due to their limited exposure to these technologies in medical school.…”

“…The participants also shared that more evidences on the effectiveness of digital technologies and their impacts on patient care would help to accelerate the uptake of these technologies in the healthcare sector. This is crucial since past study has shown that the perceived gradual adoption of digital technologies in the local healthcare industry could act as a barrier to the training of DHC (Zainal, 1 , et al, 2023). However, evidence-based research, at least in the local context, is still lacking (OL1).…”

“…The rise of digital technologies such as Arti cial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and Internet of Things (IoT) has in uenced clinical processes around care delivery worldwide and is expected to be used pervasively in the healthcare industry (Gopal et al, 2019). Notwithstanding these digital transformations in healthcare, studies have shown a lag in the implementation of guidelines and directives for the training of digital health competencies (DHC) in medical schools, particularly for clinical practice ( Aungst & Patel, 2020; Edirippulige et al, 2018;Khurana, 2020;Paranjape et al, 2019;Zainal, 1 , et al, 2023;. DHC in this study refer to the knowledge, skills and attitudes that medical doctors need to possess when using digital technologies for patient care, particularly when assessing, diagnosing, treating and caring for their patients ( (Khurana et al, 2022).…”