Is there any change in the Career Perceptions of Family Medicine Residents After Working in COVID-19 Clinics During the Pandemic?

Serap Ateş Neng, İbrahim Halil Özden, Pemra C. Unalan

Keywords: family medicine, residency, Covid-19 pandemic, career perception, awareness

Background:

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global pandemic on March 12,2020. During this process, family medicine residents have worked and are working in the COVID-19 polyclinic, triage and service areas together with the research residents of different clinics.

Research questions:

What are the effects of the pandemic on family medicine residents’ education, needs and their general professional career perceptions?

Method:

The sample size of this descriptive research is calculated to be 260 to represent the residents in Istanbul.The online questionnaires were applied to 262 residents and 12 teachers in residency training from all institutions providing family medicine specialty training in Istanbul between June,10 and August,10 2021.Chi-square, T-tests and Mann-Whitney-U test were used to compare data.In comparisons, p<0.05 was considered as significant for the difference between groups.

Results:

During the pandemic, most of the family medicine residents stated that they had difficulty in finding a reserved time to read medical publications (59.20%n:154) and also difficulty in making research/publication during the pandemic (78%n:202).Most of the participants (78.10%n:203) stated that the face-to-face residency trainings also turned to the online education and the majority (33.20%n:87) stated that"it was getting worse, my participation in the trainings decreased and I started to get less efficiency".Vocational Career Awareness Scale and the Post-Graduation Hospital Educational Environment Scale means compared to those who preferred the branch of family medicine because it was their favorite and who receive specialization training in the field they preferred were significantly higher than those who did not receive (p:0.000).

Conclusions:

Providing adequate training in any extraordinary situation, working face-to-face with peers and mentors; adding some innovations to increase participation and efficiency in continuing education with the online system, and effective communication with the lecturers in those sessions;physicians who want and love the branch of family medicine provide a positive perception of the education and increase professional career awareness.

Points for discussion:

Would you like to know the result of any further analysis?

Do you observed the similar problem in your country among the residents?

How do you react or cope with this situation?