Strides in Development of Medical Education (Jul 2011)
The Effect of Early Clinical Experience on Attitude of Medical Students Toward Basic Sciences Courses
Abstract
Background & Objective: Nowadays early clinical experience (ECE) in Medical education has been developed with the aim of establishing efficient relationship between basic sciences courses and clinical education This study was done to evaluate the effect of early clinical experience on the attitudes of students in Sari School of Medicine toward basic sciences courses Methods: This interventional study (before and after) was done on all Sari Medical students in the 4th semester of basic sciences program An ECE program in 8 sessions was designed and developed during the 4th academic semester Attitudes of the students toward clinical importance of basic sciences courses were asked before and after the program by a valid and reliable questionnaire Data were analyzed using Wilcoxon Chisquare and McNemar tests and through SPSS 13 software package Results: From 47 students 42 ones were participated in the study (response rate= 89%) of whom 25 ones were female (60%) Early clinical experience could only affect the attitude of students in neuroanatomy course (P