Skills in National Core Curriculum: National Survey of Primary Care Physicians in Turkey

Objective: Core curriculum describes the basic standard of medical education. In this study, we aimed to investigate primary care physicians' views on the minimum level of competency required in a general practitioner about skills listed in the National Core Curriculum for Undergraduate Medical Education-2014 (NCC-2014) and whether they feel competent in these skills. Methods: Between October 1, 2017 and September 1, 2018, 27652 primary care physicians who work in Turkey were surveyed about the skills listed in the NCC-2014. The participants rated the minimum competency for every skill on 0-4 level, and also stated whether they felt that the primary care physicians were competent. Results: 4117 (14.9%) participants answered entire questions. Out of 136 skills, "Level3-Should be able to do the skill in cases which are frequent and not complex" was the most selected category for 123 (90.4%) skills, "Level2-Should be able to do the skill according to the guidelines in a state of emergency" was the most selected category for 10 (8.1%) skills, and "Level4-Should be able to do the skill even in complex cases" was the most selected category for 3 (2.2%) skills by participants. Conclusions: The participants are generally willing to perform skills, but according to them, some of the skills are complex. There are differences between the required competency levels in the NCC-2014 and the opinions of participants. Since physicians' views are important for curriculum development, medical curriculum developers around the world would benefit from findings of this study.