أنطباعات أطباء الأسرة المقيمين الأقدمين حول مفهوم أختصاصهم وتقييم المنهاج التدريبي لطب الأسره في العراق

Family Medicine Resident’s Perception about their Specialty and Residency Program Assessment in Iraq

Background:

Family Medicine specialists are the frontline of medical services. So they require a wide range of knowledge, practice and experience. Exposure of Family Medicine resident doctors to common health problems seen on daily basis is mandatory. However, the training of residents varies among various training centers, because of the variability in number of patients attending hospitals and their health problems, age, gender, and other factors.

A periodic evaluation of family medicine residency training and the exploration of residents’ perception toward their specialty and training are important.

Objective of the study:

1. To explore family residents’perception toward their specialty.
2. To assess factors affecting clinical training of family residents in teaching centers.
3. To evaluate satisfaction with the FM training program and approached potential strategies for improvement from the residents.

Subject and Method:   

     A cross sectional study was conducted through a convenient sample covering several training centers in Iraq in the period between 1^st  February to 31th   July, 2018.  A special self-administered questionnaire based on 5 points Likert scale prepared for this purpose and was tested by a pilot study. A total of 275 questionnaire forms distributed to Family Medicine residents.

Results 

The accomplished sample was 187 participants, female represents 93% of them. Nearly 55% of the participants will choose Family medicine specialty again if time is back. A similar percentage will recommend Family Medicine for students seeking advice. Nearly 75% of the participants have positive feeling towards their future as family physicians. However, 63.6% were dissatisfied with their residency training program. Lack of adherence of teaching hospitals to training curriculum, on different areas, and this indicate weak understanding and acceptance, to them and Family Medicine specialty from physicians of other clinical branches.

Conclusions: 

       Despite the general dissatisfaction among Family Medicine residents because of the obstacles faced by the training program, there is good proportion of residents who were satisfied with family medicine specialty as a chosen career; but they have many critiques concerning their residency training curricula and the application of clinical training in the hospitals. These points are vital and need to be considered by their supervisors and higher committees concerned.   We suggest that the Ministry Of Health need to define an obvious career lines for residents with adequately organized program in the future.