Adequacy of education in musculoskeletal medicine
Three articles on PainSci cite Matzkin 2005: 1. Reviews of Pain Professions 2. Alternative Medicine’s Choice 3. The Medical Blind Spot for Aches, Pains & Injuries
PainSci notes on Matzkin 2005:
From the abstract: “ … training in musculoskeletal medicine is inadequate in both medical school and nonorthopaedic residency training programs.”
original abstract †Abstracts here may not perfectly match originals, for a variety of technical and practical reasons. Some abstacts are truncated for my purposes here, if they are particularly long-winded and unhelpful. I occasionally add clarifying notes. And I make some minor corrections.
BACKGROUND: Basic musculoskeletal knowledge is essential to the practice of medicine. A validated musculoskeletal cognitive examination was given to medical students, residents, and staff physicians in multiple disciplines of medicine to assess the adequacy of their musculoskeletal medicine training.
METHODS: The examination was given to 334 volunteers consisting of medical students, residents, and staff physicians. Analysis of the data collected and comparisons across disciplines were performed.
RESULTS: The average cognitive examination score was 57%. Sixty-nine participants (21%) obtained a score of >/=73.1%, the recommended mean passing score. Of the sixty-nine with a passing score, forty (58%) were orthopaedic residents and staff physicians with an overall average score of 94%. Differences in the average scores for the orthopaedic residents compared with all other specialties were significant (p < 0.001). The average score was 69% for the 124 participants who stated that they had taken a required or an elective course in orthopaedics during their training compared with an average score of 50% for the 210 who had not taken an orthopaedic course (p < 0.001). When the scores of those in orthopaedics were excluded, the average score for the participants who had taken an orthopaedic course was 59%; this difference remained significant (p < 0.001).
CONCLUSIONS: Seventy-nine percent of the participants failed the basic musculoskeletal cognitive examination. This suggests that training in musculoskeletal medicine is inadequate in both medical school and nonorthopaedic residency training programs. Among the nonorthopaedists, scores were significantly better if they had taken a medical school course or residency rotation in orthopaedics, suggesting that a rotation in orthopaedics would improve the general level of musculoskeletal knowledge.
This page is part of the PainScience BIBLIOGRAPHY, which contains plain language summaries of thousands of scientific papers & others sources. It’s like a highly specialized blog. A few highlights:
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- A double-blinded randomised controlled study of the value of sequential intravenous and oral magnesium therapy in patients with chronic low back pain with a neuropathic component. Yousef 2013 Anaesthesia.
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- Photobiomodulation therapy is not better than placebo in patients with chronic nonspecific low back pain: a randomised placebo-controlled trial. Guimarães 2021 Pain.