National Undergraduate Medical Core Curriculum in Turkey: Evaluation of Residents

Abstract

Background:There is verylittleinformation available onself-per-ceived competence levels ofjunior medical doctors withregard to definitions bytheNational CoreCurriculum (NCC) forUndergradu-ate Medical Education.Aims:Thisstudy aims todetermine theperceived level ofcompe-tence of residents during undergraduate medical education within the context of the NCC.Study Design: Descriptive study.Methods:Thesurvey wasconducted between February 2010 and December 2011; thestudy population comprised 450residents. Of thisgroup, 318(71%) participated inthestudy. Self-assessment questionnaires oncompetencies were distributed andresidents were asked to assess theirowncompetence in different domains byscoring them on a scale of 1 to 10.Results:Nearly halfof theresidents reported insufficient experience ofputting clinical skills intopractice when theygraduated. Inthe theoretical partofNCC, thelowest competency score wasreported forhealth-care administration, while thedetermination oflevel of chlorine in water, delivering babies, andconducting forensic exami-nations hadthelowest perceived levels of competency in theclinical skills domain. Conclusion:Residents reported lowlevels of perceived competency in skills theyrarely performed outside theuniversity hospital. They weremuch more confident in skills theyperformed during theirmed-ical education.