Preclinical Medical Education in Turkey through the Students' Perspective and Knowledge of Research Activities

BACKGROUND Medical education is a long and difficult process. Nowadays, along with advances in communication technologies and the ease of access to information, new methodologies are applied too. However, the educational process shows that there are problems with training and guidance in Turkey. MATERIAL and METHODS An e-questionnaire was sent to randomly selected medical students enrolled on courses in Turkey in the 2014-2015 academic year. The students were questioned about their e-database using habits, and their views on research projects. The student responses were collected simultaneously in the database and the values in the database were assessed at every stage at instants in time. RESULTS The survey was conducted with the participation of 450 students. The majority of students stated that they attended lectures partial or full-time (90%). In total, 371 of the 450 students thought that the lectures were unsatisfactory. The number of students who needed additional resources were 273 (73.5%), and the proportion of those planning to take private lesson was very high (77.4%). Although education was given, the ratio of those using the e-database provided by the universities and The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) was very low (17.4%). While only 15.4% students stated that they participated in article time activity, the proportion of students participating in research projects was higher at 30.9%. CONCLUSION Students stated that their received education is not enough and they needed to complement it with private courses, and also stated that the resources provided by the Government (universities and TUBITAK) were not sufficient. It is therefore clearly important to overcome the deficiencies and increase the guidance studies provided to students in Turkey.