To evaluate the effect of problem-based learning (PBL) and management by objective (MBO) in clinical teaching of general surgery.

From July 2019 to December 2019, 48 clinical medicine undergraduates were selected from our hospital for clinical probation in general surgery, They were randomly divided into traditional teaching group, PBL teaching group, MBO teaching group, and non-traditional comprehensive teaching group (PBL+MBO group), with 12 undergraduates in each group. At the end of the two-month probation period, the theoretical knowledge and practical ability of the four groups of trainees were tested. In addition, the trainees were requested to evaluate the teaching effect and the patients were requested to evaluate the satisfaction with trainees.

In the PBL group and MBO group, students' scores in the theoretical knowledge test and practical operation test (PBL: 86.13±5.78 and 82.91±6.51; MBO: 85.47±7.50 and 84.36±6.04, respectively), as well as trainees' evaluation of teaching effect (91.17±6.83 and 90.43±7.49) were higher than those in the traditional teaching group (81.05±6.34, 77.45±5.23 and 86.95±5.72, respectively) (P＜0.05); the scores of the PBL+MBO group (90.26±5.91, 88.02±4.97 and 94.02±5.01, respectively) were higher than those of the PBL group and MBO group (P＜0.05). The satisfaction of patients with trainees in the PBL group, MBO group, and PBL+MBO group was higher than that in the traditional teaching group (P＜0.05).

The application effect of non-traditional teaching methods in general surgery teaching is better than that of traditional teaching method. Moreover, the combination of different kinds of non-traditional teaching methods has a synergistic effect.