EXPLORING THE PERCEPTION OF MEDICAL ALUMNI REGARDING INTEGRATED VS NON-INTEGRATED SYSTEM OF EDUCATION: A CROSS SECTIONAL SURVEY

Background: Memorization without any concept is the major impasse of traditional educational system in Pakistan. The extensive syllabus lacking concepts, pressure of assessments and forceful turnout in lectures divert the focus of medical students which leads to misconception and incompetence in clinical field. Aim of this study was to assess the perception of medical graduates/undergraduates regarding flaws and beneficence of non-integrated and integrated system respectively. Methodology: This cross-sectional study was conducted at CMH & LMDC from August, 2015 to September, 2015.The sample size was 225, non probability convenient sampling method was used. A modified version of questionnaire tailored from Usman et al and Farida et al was used to collect data online through Google forms which was sent to potential candidates to more than 20 medical colleges of Punjab, Pakistan. Five (5 point) Likert scale and SPSS v22 was used to assess the responses. Results: Mean age of the respondents was 22(+/- 1.83). Only a small number (15.3%) said that they are satisfied with current system of education while 18.9% were of the view that current system is total failure. Majority (77.5 %) said they attend lectures for the sake of attendance similarly major proportion (88.3%) agreed that clinical rotations are better than lecturers. Regarding usefulness of the PBL system, majority (79.1%) were in favor of its implementation especially respondents who belong from Government medical institutes. Conclusion: It is the indispensability to implement integrated system to meet up the rising standards of medical education keeping in view the assessed positive response among medical graduates for the system which will not only make collaboration more effective but also increase accessibility and improve approach for learning medicine.