Observational studyBMJ open2016
Supervisors' perspective on medical thesis projects and dropout rates: survey among thesis supervisors at a large German university hospital.
Observational study in BMJ open, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed.
- The impact of doctorate-timing, whether undergraduate or postgraduate, on the experience of German doctors.BMC medical education · 2026Article
- Article
- Academic outcomes of geriatric medicine theses in internal medicine residency: a 25-year nationwide review in Türkiye.BMC medical education · 2025Article
- Article
- Expectations of doctoral students in the field of medicine and health sciences towards a graduate school: an online cross-sectional survey in Germany.Frontiers in medicine · 2024Article
- Curriculum initiatives to enhance research skills acquisition by medical students: a scoping review.BMC medical education · 2021Article
- Medical Students' Acquaintance with Core Concepts, Institutions and Guidelines on Good Scientific Practice: A Pre- and Post-questionnaire Survey.Science and engineering ethics · 2020Article
- Twelve tips for UK medical students undertaking laboratory-based intercalated research projects.MedEdPublish (2016) · 2020Article
- Pediatric Surgical Research Output in Germany in the Last 30 Years - An Assessment and International Comparison of Three Dedicated Paediatric Surgical Journals.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2020Article
- What factors affect the quality of medical students' doctoral theses? A comparative study in affiliated hospitals of a Chinese university.Advances in medical education and practice · 2019Article
- The importance of scientific competencies in German medical curricula - the student perspective.BMC medical education · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesTo identify underlying causes for failure of medical thesis projects and the constantly high drop-out rate in Germany from the supervisors' perspective and to compare the results with the students' perspective.
settingCross-sectional survey. Online questionnaire for survey of medical thesis supervisors among the staff of Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany. Published, earlier longitudinal survey among students for comparison.
participants1069 thesis supervisors participated. DATA EXTRACTION AND SYNTHESIS: Data are presented using descriptive statistics, and the χ PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOMES: Not applicable. This survey is an observational study.
resultsOf 3653 potential participants, 1069 (29.3%) supervising 3744 doctoral candidates participated in the study. Supervisors considered themselves to be highly motivated and to offer adequate supervision. On the other hand, 87% stated that they did not feel well prepared for thesis supervision. Supervisors gave lack of timeliness of doctoral students and personal differences (p=0.024 and p=0.001) as the main reasons for terminating thesis projects. Doctoral students predominantly mentioned methodological problems and difficult subjects as critical issues (p=0.001 and p<0.001). Specifically, students felt ill prepared for the statistical part of their research-49.5% stated that they never received statistical assistance, whereas 97% of supervisors claimed to help their students with statistical analysis.
conclusionsThe authors found that both thesis supervisors and medical students feel ill prepared for their roles in the process of a medical dissertation. Contradictory reasons for terminating medical thesis projects based on supervisors' and students' self-assessment suggest a lack of communication and true scientific collaboration between supervisors and doctoral students as the major underlying issue that requires resolution.
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