Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to investigate students’ experiences with neurosurgery curricula at three medical schools in Saudi Arabia.
Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among students from three medical schools in Saudi Arabia. A multistage cluster sampling technique was used to select medical schools from different geographical regions. Data were collected through an online questionnaire consisting of three sections including general character istics, students’ experience, and opinions about neurosurgery teaching and curriculum.
Results: Of 512 medical students recruited for the survey, 471 (92%) responded to the questionnaire. Of these 471 students, 192 (40.8%) were from King Saud University (KSU), 154 (32.7%) from Taif University, and 125 (26.5%) from Tabuk University. Most of the medical students (73.9%) indicated that neuroanatomy sessions were delivered by medically qualified university staff members. Taif medical students had more neurosurgery curriculum (40.5%) as compared to the students from KSU (39.2%) and Tabuk (20.3%). Blood supply topics were found to be the most common subject covered in the neurosurgery curriculum from the three medical schools. There was a statistically significant difference between Taif students (40.2%) as compared to KSU (37.9%) and Tabuk (21.9%) university students in terms of arranging additional neuroanatomy/neuroradiology sessions to increase their knowledge (p = 0.003). Moreover, about 53.4% of Taif students were involved in neurosurgery research as compared to 31.8% at KSU and 14.8% at Tabuk universities.
Conclusion: Neurosurgery is still not a part of most medical schools’ curricula. Designing and developing a neurosurgery curriculum is very important and should be considered by medical schools.

Key words: Neurosurgery, curriculum, medical school, experience, Saudi Arabia.