{"title":"Internship orientation: An essential facilitatory bridging step for medical students.","authors":"Rajesh Kathrotia, Farhanul Huda, Shalinee Rao, Anupama Bahadur, Ravi Kant, Manisha Naithani","doi":"10.4103/ajm.ajm_202_20","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Internship is a facilitatory period that hones skills and helps in the evolution of a qualified medical student to a competent doctor. The feeling of a final year student joining as a fresh intern after successfully completing the final professional examination will be directionless without a bridging initiative through a buffer program. Fresh interns need to be oriented to the fundamentals of working effectively with a patient as a whole and not as a separate discipline. This study was done to evaluate the effectiveness of the internship orientation program and to assess the feedback of participants about this program.</p><p><strong>Methodology: </strong>This was a study conducted on 235 freshly joined medical interns. The process included evaluation of a well-structured seven-day orientation program by prevalidated structured Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) and feedback.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>All interns performed satisfactorily in the post-test with a mean score of 74.13 ± 7.18. Post-test scores were highest for procedure skills and communication skills, including medical ethics. Overall, 232 (99%) of interns responded that the program was useful and it successfully enhanced their clinical skills; 221 (94%) of interns expressed that the content of the program was excellent to good; and 228 (97%) of interns felt that the method used for training was appropriate. Interns also documented that there were a few new skills that were acquired by attending this program.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>There is an unmet need for an internship orientation program across all medical colleges to lay a strong foundation for naive interns. Based on the results, we recommend an internship orientation program for a smooth and swift transition from that of a medical student to professional life. It will orient the interns and lay the foundation for the next level of assignment in building their professional career.</p>","PeriodicalId":32889,"journal":{"name":"Avicenna Journal of Medicine","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2021-04-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/29/83/AJM-11-77.PMC8101643.pdf","citationCount":"3","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Avicenna Journal of Medicine","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.4103/ajm.ajm_202_20","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2021/4/1 0:00:00","PubModel":"eCollection","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 3
Abstract
Background: Internship is a facilitatory period that hones skills and helps in the evolution of a qualified medical student to a competent doctor. The feeling of a final year student joining as a fresh intern after successfully completing the final professional examination will be directionless without a bridging initiative through a buffer program. Fresh interns need to be oriented to the fundamentals of working effectively with a patient as a whole and not as a separate discipline. This study was done to evaluate the effectiveness of the internship orientation program and to assess the feedback of participants about this program.
Methodology: This was a study conducted on 235 freshly joined medical interns. The process included evaluation of a well-structured seven-day orientation program by prevalidated structured Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) and feedback.
Results: All interns performed satisfactorily in the post-test with a mean score of 74.13 ± 7.18. Post-test scores were highest for procedure skills and communication skills, including medical ethics. Overall, 232 (99%) of interns responded that the program was useful and it successfully enhanced their clinical skills; 221 (94%) of interns expressed that the content of the program was excellent to good; and 228 (97%) of interns felt that the method used for training was appropriate. Interns also documented that there were a few new skills that were acquired by attending this program.
Conclusion: There is an unmet need for an internship orientation program across all medical colleges to lay a strong foundation for naive interns. Based on the results, we recommend an internship orientation program for a smooth and swift transition from that of a medical student to professional life. It will orient the interns and lay the foundation for the next level of assignment in building their professional career.