Internal Medicine Clerkship Amidst COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study of the Clinical Learning Experience of Undergraduate Medical Students at Makerere University, Uganda

  1. Felix Bongomin
  2. Ronald Olum
  3. Lydia Nakiyingi
  4. Rejani Lalitha
  5. Isaac Ssinabulya
  6. Christine Sekaggya-Wiltshire
  7. Ponsiano Ocama
  8. Pauline Byakika-Kibwika

Reviewed by

Read the full article

Listed in

Log in to save this article

Abstract

No abstract available

Article activity feed

  1. Version published to 10.2147/amep.s300265
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.12.16.20248110: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementConsent: Study population: All 3rd and 5th Year MBChB students who undertook the internal medicine rotation during the October –November 2020 clinical clerkship period were included in the study after informed consent was obtained.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Statistical analyses: Data from completed questionnaires were entered into Microsoft Excel 2016 for cleaning and coding and later exported to STATA version 16.0 for analyses.
    Microsoft Excel
    suggested: (Microsoft Excel, RRID:SCR_016137)
    STATA
    suggested: (Stata, RRID:SCR_012763)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Study limitations: Our study had some limitations. Firstly, there was no previously standardized and validated tool to assess clinical learning experience during this COVID-19. However, we adapted an existing validated and published tool used in a similar setting but in a non-pandemic situation. Secondly, there’s paucity of published literature in this area and therefore not sufficient published studies to compare and contrast our findings with. However, to the best of our knowledge this is the first study to explore clinical learning experience of medical students in their clinical years during this pandemic in Uganda and Africa at large. Despite the above limitations, our findings provide valuable information about teaching and learning clinical medicine during the pandemic in resource-limited settings. Conclusions: In this study, we have reported a considerable negative effect of the COVID-19 pandemic among undergraduate medical students clerking internal medicine in Uganda. Direct patient care activities were adversely affected. Clinical teaching of junior clerks should be separate from senior clerks to maximise their clinical learning experience.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a protocol registration statement.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.12.16.20248110v1 on medRxiv