Investigation of the Admission Profile of Medical Residency in Brazil: An Observational Study

Abstract

Background: Medical Residency (MR) started in 1889, at the Department of Surgery at John’s Hopkins Hospital, in the United States, to assist the development of medical specialties. In Brazil, it was implemented in the 1940s at the Hospital das Clínicas of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of S &atilde; o Paulo, but it was only in the 1970s that its true expansion took place ; however, the admission criteria (AC) in the MR are heterogeneous in this country. Objective: It was to analyze the main AC in MR in Brazil, in order to know the main differences between them and to highlight the most important AC. Methods: An observational study (STROBE rules) was carried out on the evaluation of twenty-seven (27) AC for RM adopted or not by ten (10) institutions in Brazil. As an evaluation criterion, the terms “1 = yes” and “0 = no” were adopted in relation to the adoption of competences. Descriptive statistical analysis, ANOVA-One-Way Test ( p < 0.05 with a statistical difference), multivariate analysis and ANOVA-Equality of variances w ere performed. Results: Table 1 shows the numerical and percentage data of the occurrence of types of admission criteria in medical residency programs. There was a difference between the averages of each Institution in terms of absolute values, as well as a statistically significant difference in relation to the AC of each MR, with p = 0.000 ( Table 2 ). Figure 1 shows the distribution of the mean values a nd standard deviations for each criterion around zero (0) to one (1). Figure 2 shows the degree of similarity between the results of the criteria, providing a more accurate relationship between them. Discussion and Conclusion: It was observed that there are differences in the adoption of AC among the ten MR institutions, making it necessary to establish standardization measures between them, in order to improve medical specialization. Therefore, these findings allowed know ing the admission profile of ten medical residency services in Brazil, working as a pilot study. From these results, it is possible to envision possible improvements to achieve the improvement of medical qualification in the near future.