Attitude of Final Year Medical Students and House Officers to Otorhinolaryngology Surgery Training

Background: A good proportion of medical students and house officers will consider specialization in different aspects of medicine following graduation. However, there are still individuals who at this stage are undecided both in the question of specialization as well as on what area to pursue a career in. In a developing and resource poor country such as our environment where the doctor-patient ratio is very poor, proper distribution of physicians to meet the health demands of the people becomes of utmost importance.

Study Design: A descriptive questionnaire based study.

Place and Duration: Department of otorhinolaryngology surgery university of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital between January 2019 and March 2019.

Methodology: We distributed semi structured self- administered questionnaire to all the final year medical students and the house officers of university of port Harcourt and university of port Harcourt teaching hospital. Only the house officers that did rotation in the ORL surgery department and final year medical students that gave their consent were recruited into the study. Those that did not do a rotation in ORL among the house officers and those that did not give consent were excluded. The data obtained was analyzed using SPSS version 20.0 and results presented in simple statistical tables.

Results: In this study there was a recovery rate of 82.4% with 70 respondents, 45 males and 25 females with a ratio of 1.8:1. Age range was 20 to 39 years. The age range 25-29 (58.57%) was the highest and least in age 35-39(4.29%). The final year medical students constituted 57.14% of the study population, 60% (n=42) did not want to specialize; only about 31.43% will like to specialize. while57.14% rated their clinic exposure as excellent, most rated the trainer`s method mainly average. Most; 74.3% will not choose ORL, 14.3% were undecided and only 11.4% will like to specialize in ORL. Main reason for this choice is exposure during clinical rotation and mentorship.

Conclusion: The interest in ORL among medical trainees is poor. Among those interested, exposure during clinical rotation is paramount. Dedication and innovative ideas on the part of teachers and mentors may arouse the interest in this specialty.