MEDICAL GRADUATE STUDENT’S PERFORMANCE ON CLINICAL SKILLS IN MOZAMBIQUE

Ben’Lauro Zavale¹, Albertina Mavila¹, Epifânio Mahaganja¹, Roqueia Cumbana^1, Moséstia Machava¹, Reginaldo Banze¹, Adriano Niquice⁷, Constance Benson², Robert Schooley², Sam Patel^1,4, Emília Virgínia Noormahomed^{2,3,4 ,} Ana Olga Mocumbi^4,5

1 Hospital Central Maputo

2 University of California, San Diego

3 Mozambique Institute for Health and Research (MIHER)

4 Universidade Eduardo Mondlane

5 Instituto Nacional de Saúde

6. Universidade Pedagógica

Abstract

Introduction: In Mozambique procedural training plays a vital role for the acquisitions of competence and skills to work independently as a medical doctor in under resourced settings. However, procedural skills assessment studies for medical students are lacking. The objective of the study was to assess finalist student’s skills to collect a medical history of a patient with headache or dyspnea

Methods: Descriptive cross-sectional observational study implemented in the Department of Medicine of the Eduardo Mondlane University Faculty of Medicine teaching hospital. Between June/2019 to December/2019 we recruited student participants from groups of students in the last three weeks of their training. They were asked to perform clinical history in previously selected patients. A checklist was built for evaluation of knowledge, skills and competences consisting of 40 items for clinical history. Scores were classified as bad (below 40), good (40 to 59) and very good (above 60);

Results: Out of the 41 students invited, 31 consented (17 were female, mean age 26,5 year) of which 21 delivered the clinical history and as for the result of evaluation of the clinical history of headache or dyspnea, the average was 49.4/80 and 58.4/80 respectively. The students the scores were better in dyspnea than headache.

Conclusion: Our results indicate major gaps in skills to collect clinical history of symptoms that constitute important reasons for service demand in Mozambique. There is need for larger and systematic studies to improve evaluation methods further investigate the extent and reasons for these gaps in medical training.

Keywords: medical student evaluation, clinical skills, Procedural skills