Educational audit into medical practice: A quality approach

The Faculties of Medicine in Cuba have broken their university borders and entered the dynamic of health institutions and the community, building up "health complexes" in which the quality of medical services is the fundamental and essential basis of their medical and educational practices. Thus, the audits in medical education have to embrace all the factors and actors related to medical practice. The results of integral inspections carried out since 1992 to 1994 by the Ministry of Public Health in seven Medical Faculties are analysed In-patient medical records, professionals' performances in-service training and educational activities in medical practice, students' performances of essential clinical skills and theoretical knowledge in basic biomedical subjects and in different clinical terms were assessed. The methodological value of these inspections is analysed in order to verify the level of clinical competence and professional performance reached by the students and to evaluate the quality of the undergraduate formation of our professionals and their clinical setting environment. The process of the educational audit into medical practice, by themselves, becomes a process of management to increase the quality of health services that improves the quality of medical education.