Recall Knowledge of Biochemistry for Interns after Graduation from Medical Schools

Abstract

Abstract-New medical graduates were recruited during their internship programme from 10 teaching hospitals for a cross-sectional study, carried out in Riyadh area, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. A total of 200 participants were included in the study. All the participants filled out the study questionnaire. The questionnaire contained 10 basic Biochemistry questions that the graduates were supposed to recall answers for those questions from their prior knowledge. Other information included were gender, medical school attended, year of graduation, training hospital, whether preparing for board examination such as USMLE and PLAB. Results revealed that out of the 200 participants recruited for this study, 124 were males and 76 were females. 26% of the participants graduated from medical schools adopting PBL curriculum whereas 74% were from traditional medical schools. Less than 10% of the participants correctly answered score ≥ 7 whereas 64% scored ≥ 4 to 6 and only 26% scored less than 4 of the basic biochemistry questions. Correlation of scores attained by the participants with other variables in the questionnaire revealed interesting findings. Gender, time since graduation, training rotation and preparation for examinations showed no significant correlation with score. However, of the teaching approach adopted by their schools of graduation showed significant correlation with score with P-value of 0.006.The findings suggest that basic biochemistry is perceived as a tough and irrelevant subject and expedite the need for reforms in the way the subject presented to the medical students.

Medical students perception on anatomy knowledge relevance and retention during clerkship

“…This reflects the conscious realization of our senior students regarding this problem. These findings are consistent with those of previous studies, which had reported significant knowledge loss and difficulty in retention of anatomy and basic sciences knowledge taught during the preclinical phase [4,5,14,21]. Knowledge loss could be attributed to many reasons including volume overload, teaching methods, lack of clinical application, insufficient time allocated for teaching the subject, in addition to lack of knowledge reinforcement over time [4,5,22].…”

“…In Saudi Arabia, the majority of medical schools are planning to shift from traditional curricula to more innovative ones; almost all new medical colleges in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia are adopting the hybrid problem-based learning (PBL) curricula [11,12]. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States' universities in Gulf Corporation regions aimed at reforming their medical curricula based on the outcome of different studies investigating curricular diseases, in addition to students' feedback on basic medical sciences [4,13,14]. Results of some national studies demonstrated that the majority of students found anatomy taught in the traditional, non PBL curricula was irrelevant to their clinical practice, and most of them are unable to recall information taught during the preclinical phase [4,5].…”

Recall of Theoretical Pharmacology Knowledge by 6th Year Medical Students and Interns of Three Medical Schools in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

“…There is no significant correlation with score in gender, training rotation, preparation for examinations, and time since graduation. However, there is significant correlation with score in teaching method delivered by their schools of graduation with value of 0.006 [17].…”

Recall of Prior Knowledge in Medical Microbiology Among Medical Interns: A Multicenter Cross-Sectional Assessment in Saudi Arabia

“…This finding was not observed when testing for other basic fields. 4 , 14 , 15 The only probable reason to explain the better performance of interns from private colleges is that is that their entrance qualification for medical schools was foreign secondary schools’ certificates (eg, General Certificate of Education Advanced level and Scholastic Assessment Test). This means that they are more familiar with English as a language of instruction than interns from governmental universities prior to enrolling in the medical schools.…”