75 percent of medical students feel ill-prepared for the medical profession

03.05.2010 16:15

Survey: Students critically evaluate medical studies

May 3, 2010

Many students complain about the poor quality of their medical studies. Only 25 percent say that the course prepared them well for the medical exams. Almost a third feel ill-equipped for medical work. This emerges from a survey carried out by the Center for University Development, Georg Thieme Verlag and the University of Tübingen in advance of the “Medical Studies 2.0” symposium. Using a web-based questionnaire, 300 students nationwide were surveyed. Their opinions on the general conditions, studies and new media in medical studies were collected. The quality of medical studies at German universities was assessed using school grades.

Despite the critical assessment of the course, almost 90 percent would study medicine again, and 78 percent consider the career prospects for doctors in Germany to be good or very good. However, only 52 percent rate the attractiveness of the profession as good. Things look even worse when it comes to working conditions: 45 percent give a grade of 5 or 6. In addition, the attractiveness of the job decreases as your studies progress. While 62 percent said yes by the fourth semester, in the 11th to 14th semesters it was only 48 percent.

The use of electronic offerings varies greatly

There is no uniform answer to the question of how students learn today and to what extent they use electronic media. There are enormous differences in the use of electronic offers. One in four people use their university's eLearning offerings several times a week, but almost 25 percent said they rarely or never use them. Students most often use the subject-specific offerings of Google and Wikipedia. Two thirds of those surveyed (Wikipedia) and almost three quarters (Google) stated that they use these offers several times a week for their studies.

While offers such as instructional videos or online courses do not yet play a major role - more than 85 percent of those surveyed said they rarely or never use online courses - testing your own level of knowledge using electronic exam questions is becoming more important. 40 percent use these offers several times a week. Students who are about to take an exam especially appreciate these offers.