Concussion education in Canadian medical schools: a 5 year follow-up survey

Despite concussion now being recognized as a public health priority in Canada, recent studies-including our 2012 survey of Canadian medical schools-have revealed major gaps in concussion education at the undergraduate medical school level.

We re-surveyed all 17 Canadian medical schools using a questionnaire divided in two categories: (1) concussion-specific education (2) head injury education incorporating a concussion component to determine whether there have been any improvements in concussion education at the medical school level during the last five years. For each year of medical school, respondents were asked to provide the estimated number of hours and teaching format for each category.

We received replies from 13 of the 17 medical schools (76%). 11 of the 13 (85%) medical schools now reported providing concussion-specific education compared to 29% in our 2012 survey. The mean number of hours dedicated to category 1 learning in 2017 was 2.65 h compared to 0.57 in 2012, and the mean number of hours of category 2 increased to 7.5 from 1.54.

Our follow-up study reveals increased exposure to concussion-related teaching in Canadian medical schools during the last five years. Persistent deficiencies in a minority of schools are highlighted. These should be addressed by reiterating the importance of concussion education for undergraduate medical students and by developing clear concussion-specific objectives at the national licensure level.