Some residents drop out of specialty training. How important is prior clinical experience? A survey among residents in the Netherlands.

Objectives: The drop-out rate among residents across all medical specialties in the Netherlands approximates 12.7%. This implies a capacity loss in the medical workforce, a waste of educational resources and personal damage to individuals. The aim of our study was to investigate reasons for dropping out of residency and the relationship with medical work experience after medical school and prior to residency, which is common among Dutch graduates. Method: A questionnaire listing 28 reasons for drop-out was developed and tested. The questionnaire was sent in a nationwide survey to all residents who drop out between 1 September 2017 and 1 September 2019. The respondents were asked to indicate on a 5-point Likert scale, how they weighed reasons for drop-out. Factor analysis was applied to identify dominant factors. Results: The response rate was 39% (N=129; 99 females) representing all medical specialties. The factor structure of our measure showed 5 factors; high emotional job demands, lack of professional satisfaction, incompatible lifestyle, tensions in working relationships and disappointing career perspectives. Of the respondents 69 (54%) had prior clinical experience as a physician-not-in-training in the same medical specialty before residency. The factor "lack of professional satisfaction" weighed heavier for respondents without prior experience as a reason for drop-out. Conclusion: Of influence on dropping out of residency is the lack of a clear image of the responsibilities as a physician within the residency of choice, fuelled by limited prior experience after medical school and before residency. One third of dropouts confirmed that prior physician experience within the same specialty could have prevented dropping out or prevented choosing this specialty in the first place.

Dynamics of career choice among students in undergraduate medical courses. A BEME systematic review: BEME Guide No. 33.

INTRODUCTION: Due to the lack of a theoretically embedded overview of the recent literature on medical career decision-making, this study provides an outline of these dynamics. Since differences in educational routes to the medical degree likely affect career choice dynamics, this study focuses on medical career decision-making in educational systems with a Western European curriculum structure. METHODS: A systematic search of electronic databases (Medline, Embase) was conducted from January 2008 to November 2014. A panel of seven independent reviewers performed the data extraction, quality assessment and data synthesis using the Bland-Meurer model of medical specialty choice as a reference. RESULTS: Fifty-seven studies met the inclusion criteria for the review. Factors associated with specialty preference or career choice can be classified in five main categories: (1) medical school characteristics (e.g., curriculum structure), (2) student characteristics (e.g., age, personality), (3) student values (e.g., personal preference), (4) career needs to be satisfied (e.g., expected income, status, and work-life balance), and (5) perception of specialty characteristics (e.g., extracurricular or curricular experiences). Especially career needs and perceptions of specialty characteristics are often associated with medical career decision-making. CONCLUSION: Our results support that medical career decisions are formed by a matching of perceptions of specialty characteristics with personal needs. However, the process of medical career decision-making is not yet fully understood. Besides identifying possible predictors, future research should focus on detecting interrelations between hypothesized predictors and identify the determinants and interrelations at the various stages of the medical career decision-making process.

A Pain Monitoring Program for nurses: effect on the administration of analgesics.

Both physicians and nurses are responsible for adequate pain management. The aim of this study was to assess pain management behavior of physicians and nurses, and to evaluate the effects of a Pain Monitoring Program for nurses on the extent to which nurses administer analgesics. The Pain Monitoring Program consisted of two components: educating nurses about pain, pain assessment and pain management; and implementing daily pain assessment by means of a numeric rating scale. Several outcomes were distinguished to evaluate the administration of analgesics by nurses: the prescribed analgesics by physicians, the administered analgesics by nurses, and the discrepancy between the ordered and the administered analgesics. The effects of the Pain Monitoring Program on these outcomes were measured in a quasi-experimental design with a non-equivalent control group. In total, 703 patients participated: 358 patients in the control group and 345 in the intervention group. Patients were interviewed twice, i.e. at the beginning and at the end of hospitalization. Results of the control group showed that at the first interview 70% of the patients were prescribed analgesics by physicians and only 74% of those patients were actually administered analgesics by nurses. Consequently, 50% of the patients in pain received analgesics. The administered analgesics was in absolute agreement with the prescribed analgesics in 60% of the patients with routine analgesics and in 85% of the patients with PRN analgesics. The relative difference between ordered and administered routine analgesics was small, namely 15% for opioids and 20% for non-opioids. Similar results of the control group were found for the second interview. In addition, the results showed that the Pain Monitoring Program was effective in improving nurses' administration of analgesics. At the first interview more patients received analgesics that were prescribed on a PRN basis and the doses of administered routine non-opioids including PRN increased. At the time of the second interview, more patients received weak opioids. The Pain Monitoring Program was especially effective in patients with moderate to severe pain. However, the discrepancy between the analgesics ordered by physicians and actually administered by nurses did not change as a result of the Pain Monitoring Program. Based on this study it can be concluded that the use of a simple method such as a numeric rating scale together with pain education for nurses is effective in improving the administration of analgesics by nurses. These are important results because nurses play an essential role in helping patients to cope with their pain. Because the Pain Monitoring Program (PMP) was effective in a heterogeneous population in multiple care settings, the possibility of implementing the PMP in routine nursing practice should be considered.