Evaluation of the perceptions of cardiology assistants in Turkey on the specialty education and training environment

In the present study, we aimed to evaluate the perceptions of cardiology residents in Turkey about the specialty education and training environment, and to examine the relationship of this perception with different variables. The study included 133 residents from 44 cardiology clinics in Turkey. In the study, stratified sample selection was used, and quantitative data collection methods were chosen. Postgraduate Hospital Educational Environment Measure (PHEEM) and an education questionnaire were used. The datas gathered electronically. The effects of age, gender, graduated medical school, professional year, residency level, kind of institution, weekly training hours, weekly night shifts and geographical regions on the perceptions of residents' educational environment were investigated. The research showed that residents with a professional year of 1-4 years had higher scores than with ≥5 years, 1st year residents has higher scores than the 3rd, 4th and 5th year residents, working in the foundation university is higher than working in the state universities, and residents with weekly education hours 0 is higher than with ≥2 hours. The perceptions of the residents about the achievements of the core competencies were also positively related to PHEEM. Physical environment, working hours and workload, training and lack of training hours are the problematic areas identified in this study. The study's findings provide a lot of information on the perceptions of Turkish cardiology residents about educational environment, and the areas needs to be improved where the educational process. These findings can be used as a resource for curriculum designers, clinic and hospital administrators and health policymakers to identify current problems with general cardiology education and carry out improvement studies.