Basic ear, nose, and throat knowledge among medical students: A multi-institutional study reflecting the current stage of ear, nose, and throat curriculum in undergraduate medical education

Abstract

Background: Ear, nose, and throat (ENT) complaints are quite common, representing almost 25% of adults and 50% of pediatric patients visiting primary health-care clinic. However, the duration of undergraduate courses does not correlate with how frequent ENT complaints are, as it does not exceed three weeks in the majority of medical school curriculums. Moreover, this is detrimental as all graduating physicians, regardless of their specialties, will be dealing with ENT complaints in their future practice. Objective: To assess medical students' basic ENT knowledge and to estimate their competency in approaching and managing common otolaryngology cases. Methods: This is a multi-institutional, cross-sectional study that included 1124 medical students from all public universities in Riyadh City, Saudi Arabia. Data were collected using an online survey with a validated questionnaire from a previous similar study. Results: The level of knowledge among the medical students correlates positively with their comfort level in performing head and neck examinations, as well as confronting and diagnosing ENT cases (P < 0.001). Medical interns displayed higher knowledge scores than medical students; females displayed higher average knowledge scores than their male counterparts (P < 0.05, P < 0.001, respectively). Participants who had 3–4 days per week in ENT services, and those with the intention of pursuing a career in ENT, demonstrated higher knowledge scores (P < 0.001). Conclusion: This study demonstrates that participants who spend more time in an ENT service have better knowledge scores than those with less time in the field; this indicates the need for a more extended, focused, and better-structured ENT curriculum for medical graduates to become more efficient in handling ENT cases.