To our knowledge, this is the first study conducted in Saudi Arabia that addresses this area of medical education. Almost all essential core subjects were included in Saudi undergraduate medical programs as separate compulsory courses or as part of compulsory courses or electives. This conclusion was supported by an earlier study undertaken in 30 medical schools in the Gulf cooperative countries (5). The current study found that most medical schools teach evidence-based medicine either as a separate course or as part of other courses. Similarly, most medical schools in the United States and Canada integrate evidence-based medicine (EBM) into their curricula (11). However, our results showed that only 33% of medical schools in Saudi Arabia teach EBM as a core course.
Meanwhile, in the UK, most medical schools teach EBM as a separate course (12). Communication skills were part of all Saudi medical curricula. As communication is an essential skill for any healthcare professional, this has been clearly highlighted in the SaudiMEDs framework initiative (3, 7). In addition, communication training is one of the main educational tasks of higher medical education in the United States. Therefore, communication skills courses are a necessary component of medical programs throughout all years of study (13).
Furthermore, the teaching and learning of clinical communication skills is an essential part of the modern undergraduate medical curriculum in most UK medical schools (14). Therefore, communication skills have many benefits if properly applied in the field of medicine. For example, communication skills lead to better treatment outcomes for patients, help understand and influence patients’ physical and psychological health, improve treatment and recommendations from doctors to patients, and ultimately, to improve the working atmosphere and job satisfaction (14). All this makes sense for the teaching of communication skills in all medical schools in Saudi Arabia.
Medical Professionalism and Ethics is a crucial course in medical training. Students must learn moral behaviors and professionalism so that they can become better doctors. In the medical and hospital field, doctors face various ethical dilemmas. These dilemmas are inevitable and must be handled properly. It is necessary to add ethics to medical programs so that students can face such difficulties in the future. This course enlightens students with general rules of morality that they can use to make decisions. Most UK medical schools teach medical ethics in their undergraduate programmes. A study at the University of Glasgow Medical School in England found that students showed improvement after their first year of learning ethics in small groups and their responses were similar (15). Almost all Saudi medical schools taught professionalism and medical ethics as separate required courses.
Over the past decade, teaching of patient safety to trainees in the United States has increased. The American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) included this course in its postgraduate medical curriculum because a significant increase in annual medical errors (90,000) has occurred in the United States (16). Saudi Arabia has integrated this course into most of its medical programs..
Most medical schools in different countries consider management and leadership skills as essential to medical education. In the United States, 46 (54.5%) of 88 medical schools reported having been exposed to leadership skills as part of their undergraduate medical education, either as a required course, as an elective course, or as a both (17, 18).
It is not surprising to observe that the majority (83%) of Saudi medical programs include medical jurisprudence/medical fiqh in undergraduate medical curricula. Indeed, Saudis are Muslims and most Saudi patients wish to apply Islamic law (fiqh) to health-related practices.
Patient education is an important component of modern healthcare (19). The goals of health education are to change and promote societal health behaviors. In Saudi Arabia, medical schools have understood this problem, as 84% of medical schools have added patient health education as a required course. In comparison, 8% include it as a separate required course. This may be because many Gulf Cooperation Council countries – including Saudi Arabia – experienced remarkable growth in their healthcare systems between the 1970s and 1990s (20). Since then, the Saudi government has worked to improve healthcare through patient health education. This remains a central point of health policies today.
Of 114 medical schools in the United States and Canada, only two did not teach genetic counseling. Of the remaining 112 schools that taught genetic counseling, 52 taught it as a separate course and 60 taught it as part of other courses (21). The authors believe that the interest in genetic counseling in Saudi medical schools is due to the increased risk of congenital disease, perhaps explained by the increasing inbreeding stemming from Saudi tradition. Thus, premarital and prenatal genetic counseling and testing are of increased importance for the detection of genetic diseases.
Our results showed that the majority of Saudi medical schools implement research methodology courses in their undergraduate programs. Unfortunately, some students do not appreciate the importance of learning research methods skills from the preclinical years of their undergraduate studies. This leads to many studies conducted using poorly described methodologies and a lack of knowledge about statistical methods and their misuse. In response, there have been calls to implement research methods courses with sufficient statistical training in biomedical education (22, 23).
Our results correspond to those of other studies (24,25,26), which encourages the addition of undergraduate courses that can provide many benefits to students, professors, universities and even the country, especially in terms of publishing excellent papers.
