Correspondence (letter to the editor): Nihilism is Inappropriate

The nationwide survey should raise alarm bells for medical faculties: 55% do not think that the available time to treat patients is appropriate, and 53% have experienced rigid hierarchies. In spite of the low participation rate (16%), it can be assumed that the result is representative for future providers of medical services.

A pilot study with 33 closed questions at the medical faculty of the University of Ulm, which included 821 medical/clinical students (with only 10% non-compliant) confirms the results of the nationwide survey.

Only 26% experienced their study course as mainly positive, and 25% did not see any relevance of the learnt subjects for their later professional career. Only 10% experienced the teaching of medical topics as useful for a positive attitude to their course. But only 20% expressed dissatisfaction with their lecturers. 71% of students experienced their everyday lives as stressful because of organizational issues.

All this affects medical students’ perspectives regarding their later careers. A stressful discrepancy between students’ own ideas and the reality of a doctor’s job, as experienced in internships and seminars, was reported by 57%. Only 30% thought they were given the relevant competences for their later career. 53% of students reported experiencing feelings of helplessness and insecurity in regard to their course of studies. The answers to the other questions followed a similar trend. This is a call for action as dissatisfied and insecure doctors can hardly expect satisfied and confident patients after treatment.

Nihilism in university teaching is inappropriate. In a Swedish experiment, difficult groups of school students were assigned to the best teachers, and these students achieved the best grades nationwide at the end of their year.