Malaysian postgraduate training in psychiatry: Are our trainees having consistent problem in basic science?

ABSTRACT

Objective: To assess postgraduate candidates’ knowledge on basic sciences and to compare their achievement based on two years study in the Department of Psychiatry, National University of Malaysia (UKM), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Methods: This is a study assessing areas of difficulties in basic sciences for the Malaysian postgraduate candidates sitting for mock MCQ examination papers in two consecutive years. Results: The candidates in both years failed on MCQ papers (scoring marks are only 43% and 40% for the year 2006 and 2005 respectively), which is consistent with their final examination outcomes. The candidates in the year 2006 were much superior in neuroanatomy (percentages of median scores 47% vs. 31%, p0.05) and stress/immunology (38.2% vs. 37.3%, p>0.05). Conclusion: Medical statistics and stress/immunology remain difficult subjects compared to neurophysiology and psychopharmacology. Malaysian postgraduate candidates need more efforts to understand basic sciences, especially statistics.