Study

University of Michigan survey finds majority of U.S. medical school graduates think they lack understanding of health care system

By Tina Reed
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Posted on Wed, Sep 30, 2009 : 11:07 a.m.

A University of Michigan survey found fewer than half of graduating medical students believe they have an adequate understanding of health care systems. 


The future doctors overwhelmingly reported feeling clinically prepared as they left medical school. But they said they lacked confidence in understanding the economics of the health care system, managing a medical practice or even medical record-keeping, the study found.

Students in programs with a higher intensity curriculum were three times more likely to feel they’d received appropriate training in health care systems, the survey of more than 58,000 medical students across the country between 2003 and 2007 found. 


The findings could have broader implications for the national health care reform debate and the role medical schools have in educating their students, researchers say. 

"If we don't expect doctors to understand the health care system, 
who is going to?" Matthew Davis, an associate professor of pediatrics and internal medicine in the Child Health Evaluation and Research unit at U-M’s medical school, said in a release. 

Davis is a co-author of the report, which was was published this month in the journal of Academic Medicine. 

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Tina Reed covers health and the environment for AnnArbor.com. She can be reached at tinareed@annarbor.com, at 734-623-2535 or find her on Twitter @TreedinAA.

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