Abstract:

Background:
Nurturing a high-quality workforce throughout the entire professional development path of physicians is a global challenge. The reasonable relationship between medical students' choices and excellence during the internship year, and their chances of acceptance into the desired specialization, has not yet been demonstrated in studies to date.

Methods:
In the current study, a retrospective follow-up was performed on medical students who served as resident assistants in a tertiary medical center. The relationship between the fact that they were in this position and the degree of their success during the internship year at that center was examined. In addition, the correlation between the professional evaluations received by interns at the hospital and their chances of being accepted for an internship at our institution was examined.

Results:
The current study included 1,215 interns who served at the Chaim Sheba Medical Center during the years 2014 to 2024. Of these, 264 were employed as resident assistants in our hospital during medical school. A statistically significant association was found between serving as resident assistants and high grades during internship: 58.5% of those who served as resident assistants achieved scores of 4 to 5 and 14.1% of them reached the maximum score of 5, compared with only 49.7% and 8.6% respectively among interns who did not serve as non-assistants in our hospital (p < 0.05). Among our interns, a statistically significant larger number of residents gained the 4 to 5 scores during internship (243 (63.6%) vs. 404 (48.5%) and also the highest available score of 5 (57 (18.3%) vs. 60 (7.2%); p < 0.001).

Conclusion:
Medical students who chose to work as resident assistant gained higher grades during their internship. Interns who gained higher scores during their internship year at our hospital were more likely to be accepted for residency. The current study indicates that a continuum of choice and success assure the path to specialization in a medical center that is located among the top ten in the world.

Keywords:

Internship, Medical Students, Resident assistants, Assessment.