Self-assessment of confidence of internee doctors in performing common surgical operations

A total of 140 internee doctors who had just completed or were about to complete their internship training from four leading Medical College Hospitals of Bangladesh were asked to fill up a pre-tested structured questionnaire. Of them 115 were male and 25 were female. All the participants had 6 months compulsory training in Medicine, 123 had 6 months training in Surgery and 17 had 6 months training in Obstetrics-Gynecology. Over 50% doctors expressed lack of confidence in performing ligation, vasectomy, splinting simple fractures, venesection, episiotomy, hydrocele operation, circumcision, proctoscopy and inguinal herniorrhaphy and expressed the need for further training in those procedures. Only 10% and 1.43% internees stated that they were confident about performing ligation and vasectomy independently. Internees from Chittagong Medical College Hospitals expressed their inability to perform ligation and/or vasectomy independently. So it was recommended that surgical training should be made mandatory for all internee Doctors with extension of the Internship period by at least 6 months. Emphasis should be laid on training in vasectomy and ligation. A pre-registration evaluation test may be introduced at the end of their training period.