Academic performance at the end of the career in medical students during a curriculum change in Uruguay: on time and delayed graduation and scholarships

Abstract

At the Universidad de la República, Uruguay, the medical career
duration was reduced as a consequence of a curriculum renovation.
Students who attended the novice and the prior curriculum
synchronously took a pre-practice contest in 2015, graduating
simultaneously. This work investigated the potential derivations of
taking the previous or the new curriculum and to obtain inputs for the
evaluation of the current curriculum and student support scholarship
programs in order to project improvement strategies. A quantitative
retrospective study was carried out analyzing student performance,
retention and delayed graduation in relation to the curriculum taken,
sociodemographic attributes and the use of scholarships. Regardless
of the curriculum, those with a delayed graduation showed lower
results than those who graduated in time. Delayed graduation
was associated with the sociodemographic profile. A 23.7% of the
graduates used a scholarship at some point in their career. The
scholarship recipients presented lower parental educational levels
and came in a greater proportion from the interior of the country than
the total number of graduates. It was concluded that: a) dropout and
academic delay occur at both curriculums; b) obtaining a degree
with a delay is associated with worse performance in the final career
stages, being linked to the sociodemographic profile and not to
taking one study plan or another and c) institutional scholarship
policies partially solve baseline inequities, favoring retention and graduation.