Evidence published in the Postgraduate Medical Journal suggests that newly qualified doctors feel inadequately prepared to look after acutely ill patients compared with other elements that are required in clinical practice. Professional colleagues support the view.
Based on findings of their systematic evaluation, researchers suggest this may be due to recent changes in medical undergraduate training. They searched 5 major research databases for information on published studies that appeared between 1993 and 2011, which covered the preparedness of UK medical graduates in acute care and other required competencies, according to the professional regulator in Tomorrow’s Doctors.
Tomorrow’s Doctors is a UK medical school curriculum guide that contains 16 elements in which newly qualified medical graduates need to demonstrate their proficiency in order to prove they are properly prepared for clinical practice and junior doctor training.
Overall, the researchers included 10 of 256 relevant studies in their analysis. To allow effective comparisons, they scored the studies according to preparedness ratings and discovered that UK medical graduates feel the least well prepared to attend to acutely ill patients and prescribe drugs. Their professional colleagues were likely to agree that newly qualified doctors are the least well prepared in acute care. Over time, trends indicate that the preparedness may have declined since the first publication of Tomorrow’s Doctors in 1993. Studies that allowed participants to enter free text responses also consistently demonstrated that acute care is an area of concern.
According to the researchers, it is particularly important to be competent in acute care as it applies to all specialties in community care or hospitals and is obviously the basic in helping to cut death rates. They point out that newly qualified doctors are bound to feel a little anxious about their abilities, considering the complexity of acute care, particularly when working under time pressure and in environments that have become increasingly litigious.
They comment that it is good from a patient safety perspective for newly qualified doctors’ to call on their senior colleagues for help, but declare:
“However, it is of concern that graduate preparedness in acute care, as perceived by their professional colleagues, compares so unfavorably with preparedness in other outcomes and appears to be trending downwards.”
The researchers conclude:
“The results of this study suggest that recent changes to UK undergraduate training, while improving preparedness in some areas, may have neglected acute care skills.”
Written by Petra Rattue