Author: Maja Szymanska (United Kingdom)
Co-authors: Laurence Cox, Wu Yanlong, Aaron Goh Qi Yang, Soon Shi Hua Gavin, Ali Abdall-Razak, Riddhi Shenoy
Purpose
This is a first study to investigate the differences in ophthalmology training and extra-curricular opportunities in the undergraduate programmes at Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine and Imperial College London.The aim of this study was to identify key differences as well as relative strengths and weaknesses in the ophthalmic training at two medical schools. To investigate possible improvements upon the ophthalmic training received by medical students at both Imperial College London and LKC School of Medicine, Singapore.
Setting/Venue
LKC School of Medicine, Singapore and Imperial College London, United Kingdom
Methods
A questionnaire was created for medical students at both Imperial College London and LKC medicine. Inclusion criteria applied to medical students in their clinical years who have already undergone ophthalmology rotation. Students in pre-clinical years and students who have not yet undergone their ophthalmology rotation were excluded from the study. The questionnaire was designed to assess two key components of students’ education, including their subjective perception of the education that they had received via a rating scale ranging from 1-5 (strongly agree to strongly disagree), and their current level of knowledge based on a short 20-question quiz. The quiz assessed the major subspecialties of ophthalmology including neuro-ophthalmology, glaucoma, cornea, and strabismus. Questions were designed to vary in difficulty with some assessing only basic knowledge and others requiring far greater understanding. Collected data was subsequently processed in Microsoft Excel and underwent a statistical analysis
Results
20 students from Imperial School of Medicine and 25 from Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine took part in this study. Most students from Imperial were Year 6 students, while most students from LKC were Year 4 students. The mean quiz score of Imperial students was 8.55 with a standard error of mean (SEM) of 0.651. The mean quiz score of LKC students was 12.24 with SEM of 0.357 (p-value < 0.0001).The total satisfaction score of Imperial students was 12.95 with a standard error of mean (SEM) of 0.898. The total satisfaction score of LKC students was 22.52 with SEM of 0.420 (p-value < 0.0001). About ⅔ of students from LKC were not interested in cross-border learning because they felt that the teaching in school was sufficient for their learning. The remaining ⅓ who were interested wanted to find out what others learn, see different diseases and gain an international perspective. In contrary, The majority of Imperial students were interested in cross-border learning and felt that it would help to gain a better understanding and exposure to ophthalmology. Of the minority who were not interested, they commented it is because they are unsure what it entails.
Conlusions
This study has shown that there are significant differences in the ophthalmic education received by students studying at Imperial College London compared LKC medical school, Singapore. Possible improvements to ophthalmology training proposed by this study include the use of cross border e-learning platform and more time allocated in the undergraduate curriculum to ophthalmology. In addition, resource sharing could improve the delivery and effectiveness of ophthalmology teaching, while reducing the workload of local teaching departments and medical schools.
Financial Disclosure
none
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