Although it is commonly assumed that the quality of medical school education in Australia is uniformly high, there is no national process for assessing its outcomes.
There is substantial variability in the content of medical school curricula, and the process of curriculum change is becoming more challenging because of intense competition for time and space in the course.
A national exit examination could provide a uniform standard of assessment for all medical school graduates in Australia, as well as foreign graduates applying to work in Australia.
Such an examination could assess medical school outcomes, monitor the effects of curriculum change, and provide a benchmark for new medical schools that would help medical curricula evolve to better meet society's needs.
Our data reflect changes in the final two years of the medical course at UWA and suggest that the introduction of dedicated attachments in cancer and palliative care has better prepared graduating doctors to care for patients with cancer.
Advances in patient management has resulted in a shift to ambulatory care reducing patient accessibility. Medical schools must identify means to provide students with adequate patent exposure.
In Australia, one in two men and one in three women will be diagnosed with cancer by the age of 85. Several studies have demonstrated a decline in the number of medical graduates having examined cancer patients during their training. The aim of this study was to evaluate the exposure of medical students to cancer patients during clinical placements. Eighty-eight logbooks (response rate = 24.75%) containing 9430 patients were analysed. A total of 829 patients (8.79%) had a diagnosis of cancer. Most cancer patients were seen on surgical placements, whilst general practice placements returned the lowest numbers. None were seen in paediatrics or ophthalmology. Given the role surgery plays in the staging and treatment of cancer, it is unsurprising that most cancer patients were seen during surgery. Most concerning was the number of patients with common cancers seen by our students. Only 46% of students saw a patient with breast cancer. Even fewer saw patients with colorectal (41%), lung (32%) and prostate cancer (30%). Only 14% saw a melanoma patient. Variability in the quality of the logbooks is the main limitation of this study, and therefore, it is not a complete picture of cancer patient exposure. However, it builds upon previous studies by providing insight to the number and types of cancer patients to which students were exposed. Overall, the exposure to common cancers remains concerning and further research is needed to explore the type and quality of these interactions over the course of an entire year.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.