Beyond Medical Knowledge: Medical Students’ Perceptions of Non-technical Skills and Curricular Gaps in Undergraduate Training
Abdeslam BENALI, Taha GADOUALI.
Background: Non-technical skills (NTS) are essential to clinical performance, patient safety, and quality of care. Despite their recognised importance, NTS teaching often remains implicit and insufficiently structured within undergraduate medical curricula. Understanding students’ perceptions may help identify priorities and guide curricular development.
Methods: We conducted a descriptive cross-sectional study among 150 undergraduate medical students enrolled at the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy of Marrakech (Morocco) during the 2024/2025 academic year. Participants were stratified by curriculum cycle (50 per cycle). Data were collected using an anonymous questionnaire including multiple-choice items, ordinal scales, ranking tasks, and a limited number of open-ended questions. Analyses were descriptive, and qualitative responses were summarised using thematic content analysis.
Results: NTS were considered very important for medical training by 75.3% of respondents and at least significantly influential on quality of care by 98%. Communication (92%) and empathy (73.3%) were the most frequently cited skills. Only 8% of students considered current NTS training adequate, while 92% perceived it as insufficient, particularly regarding stress/emotion management (82%) and decision-making in critical situations (60.6%). More than half (54%) reported clinical difficulties related to NTS deficits. T he most frequently perceived barriers were the absence of a pedagogical reference framework (80.6%) and assessment focused predominantly on technical competencies (67.3%).
Conclusions: Medical students strongly value NTS but report major shortcomings in their teaching. These findings support the need for a structured, progressive, and assessable integration of NTS into undergraduate medical education.
