Medical students' awareness of overdiagnosis and implications for preventing overdiagnosis

• Published in: BMC medical education Vol. 24; no. 1; p. 256
• Main Authors: Colbert, Lucinda, Hegazi, Iman, Peters, Kath, Edmiston, Natalie
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England BioMed Central Ltd 08-03-2024; BioMed Central; BMC
• Subjects: Analysis; Awards & honors; Beliefs, opinions and attitudes; Clinical medicine; Clinical placements; Cognition & reasoning; Critical thinking; Curricula; Data Analysis; Data collection; Datasets; Diagnosis; Ethics; Evidence-based medicine; Feedback; Health aspects; Independent study; Interviews; Knowledge; Learning; Medical colleges; Medical diagnosis; Medical education; Medical research; Medical student; Medical students; Medical tests; Medicine; Native peoples; Overdiagnosis; Patients; Peers; Public opinion; Student Experience; Teaching Methods; Thinking Skills; Australia; Torres Strait; Medical education; Clinical placements; Diagnosis; Overdiagnosis; Medical student
• ISSN: 1472-6920; 1472-6920
• DOI: 10.1186/s12909-024-05219-2

Overdiagnosis is a growing health issue, yet our understanding of medical students' exposure to this concept within medical education is limited. Our aim was to explore students' experience of diagnostic learning to identify how overdiagnosis may be understood by students. During in-person and online semi-structured interviews throughout 2021, we explored the education experience of twelve Western Sydney University medical students in years 3-5. Through inductive thematic analysis we identified four themes. These themes encompassed student commitment to learning about diagnosis, lack of certainty surrounding diagnosis and emotional factors of medical care, overdiagnosis as seen through the lens of high and low-value care during clinical placements and student-identified missed learning opportunities related to overdiagnosis. This study found that medical students develop inherent knowledge of overdiagnosis through an interplay of personal factors, medical school curriculum and the setting in which their training takes place. Our findings allow insight for future improvement of medical curriculum to produce exceptional medical graduates.