சுருக்கம்

Does gender difference have an effect in the academic achievements of undergraduate students’ and later as interns? A single medical college experience, Taibah University, KSA.

Mohammed Albalawi

Background: There is a difference in the method of evaluation of undergraduates and interns. Meanwhile undergraduate evaluation is mainly academic, interns' evaluation depends on both academic and personal qualities. Objectives: To study male and female academic achievement as undergraduates and interns, College of Medicine, Taibah University, Saudi Arabia. Method: All the interns’ transcripts and internship rotation evaluation for those graduated between 2014 and 2015 have been retrospectively reviewed together with their corresponding undergraduate marks and GPA (The grade point averages) in four major specialties namely: internal medicine, surgery, paediatrics, obstetrics and gynaecology. Results were presented as percentage, mean ± SD. χ2 and Student’s t-tests and binary correlation were used. Results: Regarding surgery and paediatrics undergraduate percent grades, there was a significant gender difference; where p=0.049 and 0.048 respectively. During internship rotations, the only gender significant difference was for paediatrics (p=0.012) There was a significant gender difference for GPA, where mean ± SD for males=3.7 ± 0.058, for females=3.9 ± 0.52; p=0.031) Conclusions: the performance of male and female interns did not differ neither in their undergraduate study nor in the rotations except in general surgery and pediatric. There is slight but significant better female medical students’ education achievement compared to male.