Beyond the Digital Competencies of Medical Students: Concerns over Integrating Data Science Basics into the Medical Curriculum

Abstract

Introduction. Data science is becoming increasingly prominent in the medical profession, in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, presenting additional challenges and opportunities for medical education. We retrospectively appraised the existing biomedical informatics (BMI) and biostatistics courses taught to students enrolled in a six-year medical program. Methods. An anonymous cross-sectional survey was conducted among 121 students in their fourth year, with regard to the courses they previously attended, in contrast with the ongoing emergency medicine (EM) course during the first semester of the academic year 2020–2021, when all activities went online. The questionnaire included opinion items about courses and self-assessed knowledge, and questions probing into the respondents’ familiarity with the basics of data science. Results. Appreciation of the EM course was high, with a median (IQR) score of 9 (7–10) on a scale from 1 to 10. The overall scores for the BMI and biostatistics were 7 (5–9) and 8 (5–9), respectively. These latter scores were strongly correlated (Spearman correlation coefficient R = 0.869, p < 0.001). We found no correlation between measured and self-assessed knowledge of data science (R = 0.107, p = 0.246), but the latter was fairly and significantly correlated with the perceived usefulness of the courses. Conclusions. The keystone of this different perception of EM versus data science was the courses’ apparent value to the medical profession. The following conclusions could be drawn: (a) objective assessments of residual knowledge of the basics of data science do not necessarily correlate with the students’ subjective appraisal and opinion of the field or courses; (b) medical students need to see the explicit connection between interdisciplinary or complementary courses and the medical profession; and (c) courses on information technology and data science would better suit a distributed approach across the medical curriculum.