EVALUATION OF LABORATORY CLINICAL TRAINING INTERNSHIP OF A NAACLS ACCREDITED PROGRAM IN QATAR: GRADUATES PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

Background: The medical laboratory educational programs (Medical Laboratory Science and Medical Laboratory Technology) accredited by the National Accrediting Agency for Clinical Laboratory Sciences (NAACLS) provide the graduates with the required knowledge and skills for working in laboratory settings. This study explored the graduate's satisfaction in relation to content, clinical instructors, skills gained during clinical training, and applied in their workplaces. In addition, students gave their opinions and suggestions to improve the clinical training from their perspective. Methods: The survey enrolled BMS graduates from Qatar University during the period from 2015-2020. The students answered survey questions via telephone interview. The analysis was performed using SPSS ver26. Results: The descriptive analysis showed a high satisfaction rate of 80 % for the content and organization of clinical training. A 70 % satisfaction rate was found in terms of evaluation criteria and the length of clinical training. The satisfaction rate was more than 50 % related to the clinical instructors. A minimal of 2.6% of students were not satisfied with the instructors during training. In cognitive domain graduates the skills related to safety management, working on infectious materials, and quality control were well derived by 53.9% students. On the contrary, skills related to financial management, budgeting, and HR laws were not derived by 49.6% of graduates. In the psychomotor domain, 33.1% of students derived very well capacity associated with information and communication technology however, skills related to research; planning, and designing experiments were the least derived skills. Only less than 8% claim to have never learnt skills in the affective domain. Furthermore, a comparison of skills derived and used in three domains; Cognitive, psychomotor, and affective using non-parametric test; showed discrepancies in skills derived and used in the psychomotor and affective domain (p-value <0.000). Comparison between the derived cognitive, psychomotor and affective skills with the job title illustrated that these skills were more applied by graduates working in diagnostic settings compare to those working in non-diagnostic lab settings. Conclusion: Qatar University graduates were satisfied with the content of clinical training. However, skills of the psychomotor domain and affective domain had discrepancies in deriving and further application at workplaces. Our results further concluded that the skills derived in three domains were well used by graduate working in diagnostic lab settings more than to those working in non-diagnostic lab settings. Identifying the gap areas in clinical training and bridging these gaps will help in restructuring the clinical training to improve student experience.