Assessment of creative thinking among medical students

Background: Creativity is a highly valued quality in different fields. Despite this, it is rarely included in the curricula of medical careers. Aim: To assess creative thinking among undergraduate medical students. Material and Methods: Sixty-seven students aged 18 to 31 years (45% women) from the first (16), third (26) and seventh year (25) of medical school answered a sociodemographic questionnaire and the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT). Results: Median creativity index according to age was in percentile 52 (range 2-99). Percentiles for fluency, originality, elaboration, abstraction of titles and resistance for premature closure were 31, 32, 79, 53 and 17 respectively. There were no significant differences between students of different levels (p = 0.73). Conclusions: In this group of students, there is a high performance in elaboration and a low score in Resistance to premature closure.