How Much Content Knowledge Do Graduating Medical Students Retain from Their Pre-Clinical and Clinical Courses?

Abstract

Because medical students are exposed to so much material during their 4 years of medical school, many have questioned how much knowledge one might reasonably retain. Further, physicians and medical educators have long been particularly critical of basic science knowledge retention and have asserted that a significant amount of basic science information learned is lost by the time students graduate. The purpose of this study was to investigate knowledge retention and decaying effects by utilizing a quasi-experimental design that compared responses from a sample of exiting fourth year medical students to their previously rendered responses to the exact same items 2 to 3 years prior. Results indicated exiting fourth-year medical students performed about equally well on both pre-clinical and clinical items. Additionally, it was found that 53 % of responses were deemed stable, correct knowledge over time as indicated by students providing the same correct response. Conversely, approximately 31 % of responses went from right to wrong when assessed again, indicating students likely forgot prior information or guessed correctly the first time.