Abstract
BACKGROUND: A mastery of life-threatening trauma procedures is important for medical students aiming to become proficient physicians. Thus, this study compares the effectiveness of deliberate practice with that of conventional lecture methods in teaching such students these essential skills. METHODS: A randomized controlled trial was conducted with 48 first- to third-year medical students at the Faculty of Medicine Vajira Hospital at Navamindradhiraj University (Thailand). The participants were randomly assigned to either the deliberate practice group (n = 24) or the conventional lecture group (n = 24). The primary outcome was the students' scores on the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE), whereas the secondary outcome was their overall grades. Moreover, analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to control for the impacts of gender and academic year. RESULTS: The deliberate practice group had significantly higher OSCE scores (mean = 69.79, SD = 9.49) than did the conventional lecture group (mean = 51.38, SD = 14.59), with a p value of 0.000002. Additionally, the deliberate practice group had no clear failures or seven good passes, whereas the conventional lecture group had five clear failures and no good passes. Moreover, the ANCOVA results indicated that the type of training had a significant positive effect on the students' examination scores, independent of gender and academic year (F (4, 43) = 7.44, p = 0.0001). CONCLUSION: Deliberate practice is significantly more effective than the conventional lecture method in teaching life-threatening trauma procedures to medical students. The implication of these findings is that implementing deliberate practice in medical education can enhance the competencies of students, improve their preparedness for real-world clinical settings, and produce better patient outcomes. However, future research should examine the broader applications and long-term benefits of this method in medical training. TRIAL REGISTRATION: TCTR20240816009.