Are UK medical schools using recommended national curricula for the teaching of clinical neuroscience?

Kouli, O., Bandyopadhyay, S., Ooi, S. Z. Y., Whitehouse, K. and Demetriades, A. K. 2022. Are UK medical schools using recommended national curricula for the teaching of clinical neuroscience? Brain and Spine 2 (Supp.) , 101649. 10.1016/j.bas.2022.101649

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Abstract

Background: Medical schools are responsible for training medical students to recognise and commence management for a broad spectrum of diseases, including clinical neuroscience conditions. To guide medical schools on important topics, speciality bodies have produced speciality-based core curricula. It is unknown to what extent these guidelines are used in medical school curriculum design. We aimed to assess the use of these guidelines in designing clinical neuroscience curricula. Methods: This is a national survey. A 21-item questionnaire was sent to faculty members involved in the development of the clinical neuroscience curriculum in each medical school in the UK. The Association of British Neurologists (ABN) and the Royal College of Surgeons England (RCSEng) guidelines were used as a benchmark. Descriptive statistics are reported. Results: Data was collected from 34 UK medical schools (91.9% of those eligible). 61.8% of respondents were aware of ABN guidelines and 35.3% were aware of RCSEng guidelines. Only 23.5% of medical schools taught all 28 recommended neuroscience topics, and were not more likely to be those that used national guidelines (χ2=1.25-31, p=0.99). Furthermore, 97.1% said that they would use national guidance when making further developments to their curriculum. Neurologists were involved in the design of the clinical neuroscience curriculum in 94.1% of medical schools, and neurosurgeons in 61.8%. Tutorials/seminars were used by all medical schools to teach clinical neuroscience content. Neurologists were involved in teaching at all schools and neurosurgeons in 70.6%. Objective Structured Clinical Examinations and single best answer/multiple-choice question tests were used in all medical schools for assessment. Conclusions: There is variation between medical schools on what clinical neuroscience topics are taught and by whom. Multi-modality educational delivery was evident. Some medical schools did not currently use or recommend external clinical neuroscience educational resources; but there is support for future use of external resources including guidelines.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	Published
Schools:	Medicine
Additional Information:	License information from Publisher: LICENSE 1: URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/, Start Date: 2022-10-17
Publisher:	Elsevier
ISSN:	2772-5294
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	20 October 2022
Last Modified:	13 May 2023 19:01
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/153595

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