Possibility of Practical Acquaintance of Medical Students at Clinical Stage in Shiraz Medical University with TB

Introduction. TB is one of the oldest known diseases in history that has been reappeared as a severe problem for public health and suggest whether the students of medicine in their clinical training period face the patients with TB to the extent that helps them to diagnose and cure these patients in future. Methods. This study was descriptive, retrospective, and cross-sectional that carried out by investigating the files of admitted patients in two main hospitals including Nemazi and Faghihi which are affiliated with Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. In this study all proven cases of TB during 1379 were included. The data such as age, sex, ward, duration of admission, final diagnosis, and times of admission during one year were recorded and the results were analyzed. Results. In Nemazi hospital in this period, 48 patients (28 males & 20 females) with average age of 41.3 were hospitalized of whom 4 were hospitalized twice in that year. The duration of hospitalization on average in this center was 16 days and 36 of them were admitted in different emergency wards. In Faghihi hospital, 25 patients (13 males and 12 females) with one of them admitted twice in that period were observed. The average duration time of hospitalization was 10 days and the average age of patients was 46.4 years. And 19 of them were hospitalized in different emergency wards. Discussion. These data show that of 221 proven TB patients who referred to clinical centers in this period, only 73 (33%) were admitted in educational centers of medical university. It is remarkable that 55 (75%) patients were admitted in emergency wards where there are less number of students comparing to the other wards of hospitals. Therefore even if there would be patients with TB in emergency wards all times, still about 1/3 of students (150 for every admittance) will never visit such patients. Considering the different forms and divers clinical presentation (sign and symptoms) of this disease which requires experience to be differentiated from other diseases, we understand that some of the students may not find the opportunity to face and get trained for such patients. We suggest that some facilities should be provided for students of medicine at clinical stage for training at TB centers at least for 2 weeks to gain the required skills in this field.