Assessment of Musculoskeletal System Knowledge and Skills of the Medical Students

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Objective: Musculoskeletal system (MSS) knowledge and clinical skills have been shown to be an area of weakness in medical education and practitioners, and neglected in daily clinical practice. The purpose of this study was to evaluate and compare MSS knowledge and skills of the third and sixth year medical students. Material and Methods: The study included 41 volunteers from third year and 35 volunteers from sixth year medical students. Participants were asked to mark long head of biceps brachii muscle tendon (BTLH), lateral epicondyle (LE), greater trochanter (GT) and medial knee joint space (MK) areas were with physical examination. After students marked the choosen anatomical landmarks one by one on the same subject, the accuracy of the results were checked with ultrasonography. Results: Total success rate was 51.8% in third year students while it was 68.6% in sixth year students and the difference between two groups was statistically significant (p= 0.004). Students performance to locate LE and GT was high but they were failed to locate BTLH and MK. Conclusion: This study demonstrated that medical students improved their MSS skills that they obtained in preclinical education period, during clinical education period. Nevertheless this improvement was not adequate. Regarding increasing number of patients admitting to hospitals with the complaints of MSS, medical faculties should focus on improving MSS clinical skills teaching and develope effective strategies to meet this requirements.

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Medical education , musculoskeletal system , anatomy

Kocatepe Medical Journal

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Kocatepe Medical Journal