Correspondence

Medical theses as part of the scientific training in basic medical and dental education: experiences from Finland

Pentti Nieminen¹ , Kirsi Sipilä^2,3 , Hanna-Mari Takkinen¹ , Marjo Renko⁴ and Leila Risteli⁵

¹  Medical Informatics Group, University of Oulu, P.O. Box 5000, FIN-90014 Oulu, Finland

²  Institute of Dentistry, University of Oulu, P.O. Box 5000, FIN-90014 Oulu, Finland

³  Oral and Maxillofacial Department, Oulu University Hospital, Aapistie 3, FIN-90220 Oulu, Finland

⁴  Department of Paediatrics, University of Oulu, P.O. Box 5000, FIN-90014 Oulu, Finland

⁵  Research and Innovation Services, University of Oulu, P.O. Box 8000, FIN-90014 Oulu, Finland

author email corresponding author email

BMC Medical Education 2007, 7:51doi:10.1186/1472-6920-7-51

Published:	5 December 2007

Abstract

Background

Teaching the principles of scientific research in a comprehensive way is important at medical and dental schools. In many countries medical and dental training is not complete until the candidate has presented a diploma thesis. The objective of this study was to evaluate the nature, quality, publication pattern and visibility of Finnish medical diploma theses.

Methods

A total of 256 diploma theses presented at the University of Oulu from 2001 to 2003 were analysed. Using a standardised questionnaire, we extracted several characteristics from each thesis. We used the name of the student to assess whether the thesis resulted in a scientific publication indexed in medical article databases. The number of citations received by each published thesis was also recorded.

Results

A high proportion of the theses (69.5%) were essentially statistical in character, often combined with an extensive literature review or the development of a laboratory method. Most of them were supervised by clinical departments (55.9%). Only 61 theses (23.8%) had been published in indexed scientific journals. Theses in the fields of biomedicine and diagnostics were published in more widely cited journals. The median number of citations received per year was 2.7 and the range from 0 to 14.7.

Conclusion

The theses were seldom written according to the principles of scientific communication and the proportion of actually published was small. The visibility of these theses and their dissemination to the scientific community should be improved.