prior to their surgical clerkship felt that it was beneficial to their surgical clerkship ; however , this result did not hold statistical significance .
Discussion
Exposure to anesthesiology enhanced medical students ’ perceived knowledge of the specialty and of perioperative medicine and provided an increased comfort level with performing important medical procedures utilized in a range of medical specialties . In addition , students who completed a rotation had a significantly increased interest in pursuing careers in anesthesiology than those who did not . It is not clear whether this may be attributed to students having a prior interest signing up for the rotation .
Limitations to this study include the very low response rate of 25 %, along with variation contained within groups and non-uniformity of the length of rotation . Group 1 contains students who completed a one , two , or three-week rotation . Having separate campuses with different faculty , students , and educational facilities also introduces confounders . The study is retrospective , and there is likely survey response bias related to timing of administration of the survey , with some students being further removed from the rotations compared to others ; we anticipate students further removed were less likely to respond and to recall accurately . Students interested in anesthesiology were also likely more willing to respond . There is lack of an analysis of survey results before the rotation , which would be useful to determine any change present before and after the rotation .
In conclusion , in our study an anesthesia rotation before the surgery clerkship increased students ’ confidence level with the flow of the operating room . This may lead to better interactions between students and members of the surgical team , in addition to increased student self-efficacy . However , there were no statistical differences in students ’ perceived confidence in their specific role . 5-6 A potential goal of future studies is analysis of perceived stress levels related to interpersonal interactions in the operating room of the different groups of students . In addition , there were no statistical differences in their perceived success in the surgery clerkship . While this may point to the surgical clerkship being adequate without the anesthesia integration , the majority of students who completed the anesthesia rotation before surgery did feel that it contributed to their success in the surgery clerkship . This generates actionable implications for medical education curriculum order to best support student success and can also inform faculty who advise medical students in pursuing surgery as a specialty . From this study , we propose a one-week anesthesiology rotation as an introduction / integration at the beginning of the surgical clerkship as being beneficial to overall student education .
References
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183 • The Journal of the Arkansas Medical Society www . ArkMed . org