Application of evidence-based medicine in undergraduate education to improve scientific research ability

Objective To introduce evidence-based medicine into clinical medical education for undergraduates and explore the feasible application. Methods A total of 155 undergraduate students in internship in Department of Breast Surgery, Southwestern Hospital, Army Military Medical University in 2016-2017 were enrolled. The evidence-based medicine was introduced into theoretic teaching and clinical practice. A self-controlled questionnaire study was performed to compare the scientific research ability and academic knowledge before and after receiving evidence-based medical education. χ2 test was used to analyze the number of undergraduates who had the aspiration of publishing or ideas of academic dissertation and paired-sample t test was applied to analyze the scores before and after teaching. Results After evidence-based medical education, the scientific research ability of 155 undergraduates was significantly enhanced. There were 73 students who would like to publish academic papers both before and after teaching, one student who had the will before teaching and no intention after teaching, 27 students who were willing to publish after teaching, and 54 students who had no intention to publish both before and after teaching. The difference was statistically significant (P<0.001). There were 32 students who had idea of academic dissertation both before and after the teaching, while there was no student who had the idea before teaching but no clue after teaching. Twenty-two students had idea after teaching, while 101 students had no idea both before and after teaching. The difference was statistically significant (P<0.001). Only 29.03% (45/155) of the students had access to academic databases such as Pubmed and CNKI before teaching. Meanwhile 63.64% (70/110) of the students who did not have access to the academic database before teaching knew how to use the database to solve the scientific problems. The level of professional knowledge was significantly improved. The score was 52.63±11.00 before teaching, and 71.37±9.63 after teaching, indicating a significant difference (t=-16.96, P<0.001). In all undergraduates, 91.61% (142/155) of the students evaluated the teachers as good or excellent, 87.74% (136/155) rated the teaching slides as good or excellent. Conclusion The application of evidence-based medicine in clinical teaching can effectively strengthen the research ability and overall capabilities of undergraduates. Key words: Evidence-based medicine; Education, medical, undergraduate