A nationwide assessment based on 3,011 students from 45 faculties.
The German medical curriculum has, for decades, treated scientific competence as something acquired primarily through the doctoral thesis.
In the first academic year, half of students agreed that scientific competencies are well taught at their faculty. By the final year, only 22 % did.
"I am satisfied with how scientific competencies are taught at my faculty." Likert scale, n = 3,011.
72.4 % agree or strongly agree that scientific training should be included in the mandatory curriculum.
"Scientific work should be included in the compulsory curriculum." Likert scale, n = 3,011.
The picture is sobering: across most methodological domains, fewer than one in five graduating students feel able to perform the task independently.
NKLM 2.0 competency levels for 12 scientific domains. Final-year students only (n = 222).
Literature search emerges as the only domain where a substantial proportion of students feel ready to act independently.
The Spearman correlation between objective score and self-assessment is moderate (ρ = 0.33).
Each dot is a student. Spearman ρ = 0.327, p < 0.001 (n = 1,606).
Respondents were drawn from 45 faculties — including all state-funded and most private medical schools in Germany.
Marker size and colour scale with the number of respondents per faculty.
Most graduating students do not feel able to perform basic scientific tasks independently.
Despite low satisfaction, 72.4 % of students want scientific training in the mandatory curriculum.
The moderate correlation justifies neither replacing one with the other, nor relying on self-assessment alone.
The current system relies on the doctoral thesis — and on chance — to produce scientifically competent physicians.