Trainee's preparedness for paediatric work

Aim 

Compare the opinion of paediatric consultants to paediatric Senior House Officers (SHOs) with regards their perceived level of preparedness for starting work in paediatrics. 

Methods 

A 5-point Likert scale questionnaire was administered to paediatric consultants and SHOs investigating how well they considered the SHO was performing and how well prepared the SHO perceived themselves for work in clinical paediatrics, respectively. Questions related to procedures, clinical examination, teamwork, history taking and OPD related activity. 

Results 

50 Consultants and 75 SHOs completed the questionnaire. Using a Mann-Whitney U test, both groups answered similarly to questions relating to clinical examination and history taking (p=0.51 and p=0.15). However, there were significant differences in their responses to questions relating to procedures, teamwork and OPD related activity (p<0.05). 

Conclusion 

There is a significant disparity between consultant opinion of ability and SHOs perception of preparedness for some of the same skills. More work, focusing on these specific aspects of undergraduate paediatric education needs to be carried out to improve graduate preparedness for this role