Trainee doctors 'poorly prepared' for work
Trainee doctors 'poorly prepared' for work, senior doctors claim in new survey
Wednesday, 11, Nov 2009 12:04
By inthenews.co.uk staff..
Trainee doctors who are newly qualified are poorly prepared to work, the results of a survey have shown.
According to the Postgraduate Medical Journal, when senior doctors were surveyed a majority said they thought newly qualified medical graduates were not ready for work.
The findings are based on 228 senior doctors and their critical assessment of a wide range of core skills and competencies among trainee doctors at two major teaching hospitals in the East Midlands.
The senior doctors were asked to score how well prepared their foundation year one (F1) postgraduate trainees were to work as doctors, six months after they had graduated from medical school, using a five point scale.
All trainee doctors are now required to complete a two year generic foundation programme, which forms the bridge between medical school and specialist or general practice training.
The junior doctors were assessed against most of the expectations for newly qualified doctors set out by the professional regulator, the General Medical Council (GMC), in tomorrow's doctors, as well as 18 general criteria.
The responses, which reflected a high degree of agreement, showed that "senior doctors felt the fledgling juniors were inadequately prepared to start work as a doctor".
Carrying out basic respiratory function tests, prescribing, and more advanced communication skills were some of the areas where juniors performed below par, according to the survey.
However, the trainees did perform well on basic communication skills and how to ask for help. The authors of today's research said perhaps this demonstrates that medical schools have "gone too far in emphasising risk management and, perhaps inadvertently, helplessness".
"The findings give cause for concern," they said.
"[Senior doctors] perceived that the undergraduate medical degree had not adequately prepared F1s for practice, especially in clinical and practical skills."
Among other things, they call for more opportunities for ward based experiential learning and for senior doctors to be more explicit about what is expected of F1 trainees.