Undergraduate pediatrics clerkship student must-see list: prioritization and agreement between students and faculty in the UAE.

Authors

Hamed Al Ahbabi, Ali Al Nuaimi, Khalfan Al-Shamsi, Ali Al-Afeefi, Abdulla Al Arwani, Ahmed Alsuwaidi, Elhadi H Aburawi, S Ayhan Çalışkan, Awad Al Essa, Imran Zafar, Sami Shaban, Mohi Eldin Magzoub

Published in

Frontiers in medicine. Volume 13. Pages 1876306. Epub Jul 24, 2026.

Abstract

Ensuring reliable exposure to core pediatric problems during the clerkship is challenging when case-mix varies across clinical sites. A data-informed, stakeholder-aligned "must-see" list can focus bedside encounters and guide supplemental teaching.
To identify prioritized pediatric illnesses mapped to common clinical presentations, quantify agreement between students and faculty/physicians, and estimate the number of student raters needed for reliable curriculum monitoring.
UAE-based cross-sectional survey of undergraduate medical students who completed the pediatrics clerkship and faculty/physicians involved in undergraduate pediatric teaching.
Illnesses nested within clinical presentation sections were rated on a 5-point priority scale (5 = must see, 1 = must not see). Means ± SEM were summarized by illness and subgroup (students/doctors), illnesses were ranked, and group alignment was examined using Pearson r (95% CI via Fisher z), Spearman rho, and two-way ICCs based on illness-level subgroup means. Benjamini-Hochberg false discovery rate adjustment was applied to per-presentation tests. A generalizability-theory decision study (D-study) projected reliability (G-coefficient) across different numbers of student raters.
Forty-nine usable responses were analyzed (39 students, 10 faculty/physicians). Highest-rated items included asthma, bronchiolitis, pneumonia, gastroenteritis, febrile seizure, iron deficiency anemia, and heart murmur. Students' and doctors' illness-level means were strongly aligned (Pearson r = 0.863, 95% CI 0.794-0.910, p < 0.001; Spearman rho = 0.867, 95% CI 0.798-0.914, p < 0.001; n = 81). Agreement was good to excellent for subgroup means [ICC(2,1) = 0.920 (0.841-0.958); ICC(3,1) = 0.932 (0.862-0.963)]. The D-study indicated that 10 student raters were sufficient to reach G > =0.80 in these data (projected G = 0.949).
Students and faculty/physicians showed strong alignment on a practical, presentation-based core of pediatric "must-see" illnesses. Programs can prioritize real-patient exposure for the highest-ranked problems, use simulation or structured cases when exposure is limited, and monitor exposure with low-burden periodic surveys.

PMID:
42568981
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 08 Aug 2026.

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