Medical graduate views on statistical learning needs for clinical practice: a comprehensive survey

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Biostatistics
• Public Health

Background:

• Assessing statistical competencies for medical graduates is crucial for effective clinical practice.
• Current undergraduate medical curricula may not adequately prepare doctors to both consume and produce statistical information.

Purpose of the Study:

• To establish an evidence base for essential statistics and probability competencies in medical education.
• To inform curriculum development and prioritize statistical topics for future medical professionals.
• To explore the need for training medical graduates as producers, not just consumers, of statistical data.

Main Methods:

• A comprehensive online survey was distributed to 462 medical graduates with teaching experience.
• Survey responses from 278 graduates (60.2%) ranked statistical topics by importance for clinical practice.
• Mixed effects analyses identified predictors for competency selection and compared statistical topics against critical appraisal.

Main Results:

• Medical graduates require practical statistical skills beyond theoretical understanding for clinical practice.
• Employment type and specific statistical topics significantly predicted the need for practical statistics competency.
• Graphical data presentation was the most highly rated practical competency, surpassing critical appraisal in importance for several topics.

Conclusions:

• The role of medical graduates as passive consumers of statistics is insufficient.
• Statistical education in medical schools should extend beyond critical appraisal to encompass practical application and production of statistics.
• Findings support developing learning opportunities for medical students to become proficient producers of statistics across diverse topics.