Key result
Surveyed anesthesiologists rate basic skills like diagnosing cardiac arrest highly relevant for medical students over bronchoscopy.
Why the study?
During revision of Germany's national medical curriculum toward teaching practical skills, it was unclear which practical skills in anesthesia are essential for medical students at graduation.
Cross-Sectional (n=2,898)
Yes
Basic practical skills like diagnosing cardiac arrest are prioritized by anesthesiologists for medical student curricula over advanced procedures.
Survey data support prioritizing basic resuscitation skills in student curricula; leaves open optimal balance without prospective validation.
As a part of a major reform of the medical curriculum in Germany, the national catalogue of learning objectives is being revised with the focus shifting from theory-based learning to teaching practical skills. Therefore, we conducted an online survey to answer the question, which practical skills are essential in anesthesia. Participants were asked to rate the relevance of several skills, that medical students should be able to perform at the time of graduation. A total of 2898 questionnaires could be evaluated. The highest ratings were made for "bringing a patient into lateral recumbent position" and "diagnosing a cardiac arrest". All learning objectives regarding regional anesthesia were rated as irrelevant. Furthermore, learning objectives like "performing a bronchoscopy" or "performing a rapid sequence induction" had low ratings. In the subgroup analysis, physicians with advanced training and those who were working at university hospitals rated most skills with higher relevance compared to others. Our survey provides a good prioritization of practical skills for the development of new curricula and assessment frameworks. The results can also help to establish our discipline as a cross-sectional subject in competency-based medical education, thus further increasing the attractiveness for medical students.
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Busch et al. (2022) conducted a cross-sectional in Medical education in anesthesia (n=2,898). Relevance of practical skills in anesthesia was evaluated on Relevance ratings of practical skills for medical students at graduation. In a national survey of 2,898 German anesthesiologists, basic skills like positioning and diagnosing cardiac arrest were rated highly relevant, while regional anesthesia and bronchoscopy were rated low.
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