Summary:
In this study efforts have been made to determine the most important competencies required from the student to become a general practitioner at the end of the undergraduate course. Each of the teachers from the clinical and surgical area pointed out five competencies considered most important, resulting in 335. These competencies were classified in four categories: cognitive (61%); psychomotor (3,16%); affective (4,2%) and critical sense (3,2%).
At the same time, students and residents of the medical school answered a 40 itens questionnaire about abilities acquired at the end of the undergraduate course. The findings indicated that residents and senior students have achieved more competencies in the cognitive domain (65%) than in psychomotor domain (58%), this percentage being slightly higher among the residents. Important cognitive abilities, such as diagnosis and treatment of shock, psychofunctional disturbances and menstrual alterations, were seldomly mentioned. Psychomotor skills, such as being able to perform small operations, thoracic drainage, resuscitation, imobilization of broken limbs, gynecologic examination, scored a small percentage of positive answers.
There was a discrepancy between the ideal psychomotor performance expected by the teachers from the students and residents with their actual skills, as revealed by themselves.
Some hypothesis are raised to explain the failure for such unsatisfactory practical training, regarding a medical course for graduating general practitioners.