Improved education after implementation of the Danish postgraduate medical training reform.

Introduction: A reform of educational postgraduate medical training was launched in Denmark in 2004. The reform was based on a report by the Danish Medical Specialist Commission and consisted of a number of initiatives that were all aimed at improving the quality of medical training. Since 1998, all junior doctors in Denmark have been requested to rate the quality of their training on a Danish standardized questionnaire (DSQ) comprising 24 questions. In this study, we examined how junior doctors in hospitals rated their postgraduate medical training before and six years after the reform was implemented.

Material And Methods: This study is a cross-sectional register study of DSQ ratings of the postgraduate training in the region of Southern Denmark in 2002-2004 and in 2010. The ratings were extracted from the official database: www.evaluer.dk.

Results: For comparison, a total of 1,028 ratings from before the reform and 686 ratings from after the reform were extracted. 70% of junior doctors filled in a DSQ in 2010. The doctors' perceptions of the training improved from 2002-2004 to 2010 as far as educational outcome and the department's educational effort were concerned. However, no change was evident in several questions targeting educational management.

Conclusion: Based on the junior doctors' DSQ ratings, the quality of postgraduate training has improved in several areas from 2002-2004 to 2010. But there is still room for improvement. Developing a new, validated questionnaire should be considered in order to ensure a high credibility in future work on quality.o.

Funding: not relevant.

Trial Registration: not relevant.