Self-perceived Preparedness for Practice among Graduates of Nigerian Medical and Dental Schools

Objective: To understand the self-perceived preparedness of graduating students and graduates of Nigerian medical and dental schools for their roles as interns. Methods: A cross sectional survey of graduating students and interns, assessing their self-reported preparedness for the role of interns before internship and their actual experiences at internship. Survey instruments explored respondents’ demographics, understanding of the roles of interns, self-reported preparedness for internship, and self-assessed competence at internship. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics. Mean, standard deviation, median, and Chi Square test were employed in interpreting results. Ordinal survey responses were converted to means(SD), student’s t test was employed in determining statistical significance. Significance was inferred at p value less than 0.05. Results: There were 1,798 respondents (291 graduating students and 1,507 interns) who trained from all the accredited medical and dental schools in Nigeria. Subjects demonstrated a good knowledge of an intern’s expected role but with some inconsistencies. On a six-point scale, their overall self-perceived preparedness for routine general clinical task ranged from 4.63(1.17) to 5.06(1.12). On a 4-point scale, graduating dental students and interns’ overall self-perceived preparedness for specific tasks ranged from 2.12(0.82) to 3.86(0.35), while graduating medical students and interns reported mean(SD) 3.3(0.71) and 2.9(0.88) respectively. Self-perceived unpreparedness featured majorly around basic medical and dental clinical skills, as well as some medical specialty related skills (mean(SD) of 2.2(0.9) to 3.0(0.9) on a 5-point scale. Ward round was rated most helpful in preparing medical interns for their roles, while dental students rated lectures in basic and clinical sciences similarly. Conclusion: Subjects demonstrated a fair knowledge of an intern’s expected roles with a degree of inconsistency. Self-perceived preparedness shows deficiencies with basic clinical skills but preparedness in history taking and physical examination. There is a need to direct trainees’ attention from meeting clinical requirement/eligibility for examination, to acquiring excellent clinical skills. The need for transitional programs at the beginning of clinical years and before internship is apparent. These findings have implications for prompt curriculum review and a variety of audits in the training programs.