BALTIMORE, Jan. 12 (UPI) -- U.S. medical schools may not be providing students with enough basic skills to succeed in clinical settings, according to two Johns Hopkins studies.
The studies, published in the January issue of the journal Academic Medicine, said the first two years of medical school may not adequately prepare students for the clinical rotations their third and fourth years and a second study demonstrated schools vary in their teaching of how to care for the chronically ill.
"Medical schools across the country are examining how they train medical students, and looking for new and better ways to do that," said Dr. Eric Bass, senior author of both studies and associate professor of medicine at Hopkins.
The study found a 96 percent of 190 clerkship directors from 32 medical schools felt that students need intermediate to advanced ability in communication skills and professionalism.
In addition, 78 percent said intermediate to advanced ability is needed for interviewing/physical examination; 57 percent for identifying life cycle stages; and 56 percent for epidemiology.
Fifty percent said students were less prepared than necessary in epidemiology and probabilistic thinking, and 30 percent reported students were less prepared than necessary in communication skills.
