CardiologyDevelopment of clinical aptitude skills in Cardiology undergraduates

Abstract

Introduction: One of the main skills of the doctor is the ability to make judgments in relationto the clinical problems presented by patients. Therefore, it is required that future doctorsdevelop the skills to perform well, and to solve the problems that arise in their patients in thefuture.

Objective: To identify the degree of development of the components of the clinical aptitudeof medical students at the end of the Cardiology course.

Method: An observational, prolective, cross-sectional and comparative study was conducted on93 students enrolled in the course of Cardiology course of 2015 in the second academic year ofa particular medical school with more than 85% of class attendance during the semester evaluated. Irregular students or those who had already taken the course previously were excludedfrom the study. An evaluation was mad of the overall development level of clinical aptitude,as well as each of its components. For the analysis of the results, percentages were used forthe analysis, as well as the Chi squared test to explore the distribution of each of the clinicalaptitude components, taking a value of p ≤ .05 as statistically significant.

Results: The general overall clinical aptitude level was sufficient in more than half of thestudents. The component of the best evaluated clinical aptitude, was the fact of establishing proper communication with the patient and/or family, with 92.5% of students achieving asufficient level of proficiency in this component, which corresponds to p=.0001.

Conclusions: The overall level of clinical aptitude in the subject of cardiology in undergraduatestudents is sufficient..