Aim:To assess whether the medical
graduates from one medical school felt “fit for purpose” to work as intern doctors in the Health Service in Ireland. In the early
nineties documents like “Tomorrow’s Doctors” emphasised the direction
and change that undergraduate medical training had to take. It stated that “students must be properly prepared for their first day as
Pre-Registration House Officer”. There are current arguments that junior doctors are not fully prepared for
working life when they finish university. This study aims to analyse this
perceived truth. Methods:I employed use of semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample of medical school’s qualified interns. A grounded
theory thematic analysis approach was used. Results:The interviews
confirmed the participants’ sense of being ill-prepared
for the complexities of being a doctor. Issues such as managing professional
relationships, navigating hospital politics, building support networks, knowing
when to seek help and dealing with ethically
challenging situations were all highlighted. Conclusions:The study has established that the
medical school in which the study was situated is teaching its graduates
to an acceptable standard with regard to their medical knowledge base,
communication skill abilities and the basic
tenets of history taking and examination, but it needs to prepare graduates in a more concrete way for working in complex
multi-professional clinical environments and for participating effectively in the context of acute medical emergencies. It is arguable that all medical schools should
follow up their graduates to assess
how well the medical school curriculum has prepared their graduates for practice.
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