Medical students' experience in practical skills is far from stakeholders'expectations

This study compares medical graduates experience in practical skills with a range of stakeholders' expectations. A questionnaire listing 58 practical skills was sent out to a group of graduating medical students. The medical students were asked to indicate their experience in each skill during medic al school:A similar questionnaire was sent out to five groups of stakeholde rs asking for their expectations regarding graduates' experience. The stake holders were: faculty members, consultants at clinical departments with int erns in training; general practitioners; nurses; recently graduated junior doctors. A total of 472 questionnaires were sent out and 315 (67%) were ret urned Medica; graduates showed substantial variation in level of experience , and their experience was substantially lower than the expectations of the stakeholders. Nurses and junior doctors tended to have higher expectations compared with faculty members and consultants. Differences between our res ults and reports in the literature from elsewhere emphasize the importance of performing local needs assessments, and in this process stakeholders apa rt from faculty members should be involved.