Neurology unit, Department of Medicine, University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital, PMB 1459, Ilorin Kwara State, Nigeria.
BMC Med Educ. 2010 May 20;10:36. doi: 10.1186/1472-6920-10-36.
This study sought to ascertain perception of Nigerian medical students of neurology in comparison with 7 other major medical specialties. To also determine whether neurology was the specialty students consider most difficult and the reasons for this and to appraise their opinion on how neurosciences and neurology were taught in their different universities.
Self-administered questionnaires were used to obtain information from randomly selected clinical students from 3 medical colleges in Nigeria (University of Ibadan, Ibadan; University of Ilorin, Ilorin; Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Osogbo).
Of 320 questionnaires sent out, 302 were returned given 94% response rate. Students felt they knew neurology least of all the 8 medical specialties, and were not confident of making neurological diagnoses. About 82% of the students indicated they learnt neurology best from bedside teaching, followed by use of medical textbooks. Close to 15% found online resources very useful for learning neurology and 6% indicated that group discussion was quite useful in the acquisition of knowledge on neurology. Histology and biochemistry were the preclinical subjects participants opined were least useful in learning neurology. The most frequent reasons students felt neurology was difficult were problems with understanding neuroanatomy (49%), insufficient exposure to neurological cases (41%), too many complex diagnoses (32%) and inadequate neurology teachers (32%).
Nigerian medical students perceived neurology as the most difficult medical specialty and are not interested in specializing in it. Neurology education could be improved upon by provision of more bedside tutorials and increased availability of online resources to enhance learning. There is need to emphasize increased frequency of small group discussions amongst students so that they will be used to teamwork after graduation.
本研究旨在确定尼日利亚医学生对神经科的认知，与其他 7 个主要医学专业进行比较。还确定神经科是否是学生认为最难的专业，以及原因，并评估他们对不同大学神经科学和神经科教学的看法。
使用自填式问卷从尼日利亚 3 所医学院（伊巴丹大学、伊洛林大学、拉多克·阿金托拉科技大学）的随机选择的临床学生中获取信息。
发出的 320 份问卷中，有 302 份被退回，回应率为 94%。学生们认为他们对所有 8 个医学专业中最不了解神经科，也不自信能做出神经科诊断。约 82%的学生表示，他们从床边教学中学到了最多的神经科知识，其次是使用医学教科书。近 15%的学生表示，在线资源对学习神经科非常有用，6%的学生表示小组讨论对获取神经科知识非常有用。组织学和生物化学是参与者认为在学习神经科时最不有用的基础医学科目。学生们认为神经科难学的最常见原因是神经解剖学理解困难（49%）、接触神经病例不足（41%）、诊断过于复杂（32%）和神经科教师不足（32%）。
尼日利亚医学生认为神经科是最难的医学专业，对神经科专业不感兴趣。通过提供更多的床边辅导和增加在线资源的可用性，可以改进神经病学教育，以提高学习效果。需要强调增加学生小组讨论的频率，以便他们毕业后能够习惯团队合作。
