Discrepancies in medical textbooks and their impact on medical school students

Background > Textbooks endorsed by national medical specialty societies and colleges are used as official references for faculty and national examinations. Oncology is transdisciplinary, practiced and taught by oncologists but also by other specialists. We aimed of identifying discrepancies between chapters on cancers in different official specialty textbooks and evaluating their impact on students. Material and methods > Volunteer 6th-year medical students of the Sorbonne University faculty were paired and asked to list the discrepancies between all official specialty textbooks addressing a given cancer and then individually asked to evaluate the impact of discrepancies on their learning experience. Results > In March 2018, the 17 cancers listed in the French medical school education program were addressed in 14 official specialty textbooks (2 to 4 textbooks/cancer). Out of a class of 390 students, 78 volunteered and were paired; each cancer was analyzed by 3 pairs of students (1 or 2 cancers/pair); 154 discrepancies were reported (range: 4-18 per cancer). Discrepancies induced doubt and anxiety in students; 85% considered that harmonization should be achieved for all topics of the national medical school program. Conclusions > Discrepancies between official textbook are frequent, generate anxiety in students and impact learning experience.