BackgroundProfessionalism and communication skills constitute important components of the integral formation of physicians which has repercussion on the quality of health care and medical education. The objective of this study was to assess medical graduates’ professionalism and communication skills from the patients’ perspective and to examine its association with patients’ socio-demographic variables.MethodsThis is a hospital based cross-sectional study. It involved 315 patients and 105 medical graduates selected by convenient sampling method. A modified and validated version of the American Board of Internal Medicine’s (ABIM) Patient Assessment survey questionnaire was used for data collection through a face to face interview. Data processing and analysis were performed using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) 16.0. Mean, frequency distribution, and percentage of the variables were calculated. A non-parametric Kruskal Wallis test was applied to verify whether the patients’ assessment was influenced by variables such as age, gender, education, at a level of significance, p ≤ 0.05.ResultsFemale patients constituted 46% of the sample, whereas males constituted 54%. The mean age was 36 ± 16. Patients’ scoring of the graduate’s skills ranged from 3.29 to 3.83 with a mean of 3.64 on a five-point Likert scale. Items assessing the “patient involvement in decision-making” were assigned the minimum mean values, while items dealing with “establishing adequate communication with patient” assigned the maximum mean values. Patients, who were older than 45 years, gave higher scores than younger ones (p < 0.001). Patients with higher education reported much lower scores than those with lower education (p = 0.003). Patients’ gender did not show any statistically significant influence on the rating level.ConclusionGenerally patients rated the medical graduates’ professionalism and communication skills at a good level. Patients’ age and educational level were significantly associated with the rating level.

BackgroundThe assessment of the performance of medical school graduates during their first postgraduate years provides an early indicator of the quality of the undergraduate curriculum and educational process. The objective of this study was to assess the clinical competency of medical graduates, as perceived by the graduates themselves and by the experts.MethodsThis is a hospital based cross-sectional study. It covered 105 medical graduates and 63 experts selected by convenient sampling method. A self-administered questionnaire covering the different areas of clinical competency constructed on a five-point Likert scale was used for data collection. Data processing and analysis were performed using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) 16.0. The mean, frequency distribution, and percentage of the variables were calculated. A non-parametric Kruskal Wallis test was applied to verify whether the graduates' and experts' assessments were influenced by the graduates' variables such as age, gender, experience, type of hospital, specialty and location of work at a (p ≤ 0.05) level of significance.ResultsThe overall mean scores for experts' and graduates' assessments were 3.40 and 3.63, respectively (p= 0.035). Almost 87% of the graduates perceived their competency as good and very good in comparison with only 67.7% by experts. Female and male graduates who rated themselves as very good were 33.8% and 25% respectively. More than 19% of the graduates in the age group > 30 years perceived their clinical competency as inadequate in contrast with only 6.2% of the graduates in the youngest age group. Experts rated 40% of the female graduates as inadequate versus 20% of males, (p= 0.04). More than 40% of the graduates in younger age group were rated by experts as inadequate, versus 9.7% of the higher age group >30 years (p = 0.03).ConclusionThere was a wide discrepancy between the graduates' self-assessment and experts' assessment, particularly in the level of inadequate performance. Graduates in general, and those of younger age groups in particular, tend to overestimate their clinical skills and competency.

The unprecedented progress in bio-medical sciences and technology during the last few decades has resulted in great transformations in the concepts of health and disease, health systems and healthcare organisation and practices. Those changes have been accompanied by the emergence of a broad range of ethical dilemmas that confront health professionals more frequently. The classical Hippocratic ethical principles, though still retaining their relevance and validity, have become insufficiently adequate in an increasing range of problems and situations. Healthcare that has been practised for centuries on the basis of a direct doctor-patient relationship has been increasingly transformed into a more complex process integrating the health-team, the patient (healthcare seeker) and the community. Systematic review of the specialised literatures revealed that Healthcare Ethics education has become a basic requirement for any training programme for health professionals, and should cover the different stages of undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing education. Both theoretical foundations and practical skills are required for the appropriate ethical reasoning, ethical attitude and decision-making abilities. There is growing evidence that physicians' professional and moral development is not only determined by the formal curriculum of ethics; rather more, it is determined by the moral environment of the professional practice, the 'hidden curriculum' which deserves serious consideration by medical education.

This article aims to analyse the factors leading to increased emphasis on the ethical dimensions of medical practices, and to outline the general features of the modern trends in teaching the ethics of health practices, on the basis of reviewing and analysis of the medical literature