Medical student knowledge of global health problems: obstetric fistulas in developing countries.

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate medical students in the United States at several medical schools regarding their knowledge of the global health burden of obstetric fistulas.

STUDY

DESIGN

A cross-sectional survey was conducted in 8 schools across the United States over a period of 6 months. The survey was composed of 18 questions on epidemiology, pathology, and treatment of fistulas. It was a web-based module accessed through an emailed link. It was sent to 5,103 medical students' email addresses at the 8 institutions once a week for 4 weeks. SPSS paired student t tests was used for statistical analysis.

RESULTS

Of the 1,089 students from 8 medical schools that initially began the survey, 965 completed this voluntary and anonymous survey, with a 21% response rate and 19% completion rate. Overall the students averaged 11/18 (60.7%) correct on this survey. The knowledge of obstetric fistula improved, but not significantly, with increasing level of medical school education, with first-year medical students achieving 10/18 (55%) correct and senior medical students achieving 12/18 (67%) correct (p = 0.1).

CONCLUSION

U.S. medical students' knowledge of obstetric fistulas in developing countries does not increase significantly over 4 years of medical school education. While this condition presents largely in the developing world, given rapid globalization as well as increased international health experiences for U.S.-trained health professionals,further effort should be placed in improving medical student knowledge of this devastating condition.