Self-Assessment of Problem Solving Disposition in Medical Students

Medical schools are committed to both students and society to develop capabilities required to succeed in health care environments. Present diagnosis and treatment methods become obsolete faster, demanding that medical schools incorporate competency-based education to keep pace with future demands. This study was conducted to assess the problem solving disposition of medical students. A three-subcategory model of the skill is proposed. The instrument was validated on content by a group of 17 experts in medical education and applied to 135 registered students on the sixth year of the M.D. Physician Surgeon program at a private medical school. Cronbach’s alpha indicated an internal consistency of 0.751. The findings suggest that selected items have both homogeneity and validity. The factor analysis resulted in components that were associated with three problem-solving subcategories. The students’ perceptions are higher in the pattern recognition and application of general strategies for problem solving subcategories of the Problem solving disposition model. 1. Introduction Training medical students is a long and complex process: it requires the assimilation of knowledge, development of attitudes, and the acquisition of values and skills. Those skills have become an important topic of discussion in medical education because they lead curricula development. The private university where this study was developed recently declared the competencies that a physician must have at graduation in order to meet the highest standards in the national and international context. Those skills are as follows:(i)application of the clinical skills learned to perform diagnosis, promote health, and prevention of diseases;(ii)applying knowledge of basic, clinical, and social sciences in medical practice;(iii)developing critical thinking and clinical reasoning;(iv)generating a positive change in the person’s health and treating them with respect and empathy;(v)educating society with a culture of prevention;(vi)as globalization rises, the physician must be ready to perform in health systems around the globe. The private university is interested in the assessment of the level of acquisition of competencies in their students, including their attitudes towards competencies, to fulfill the mission statement and to certify the competence of future physicians in their accreditation requirements. Epstein and Hundert [1] define competence as the habitual and judicious use of communication, knowledge, technical skills, clinical reasoning, emotion, values, and reflection in daily practice