No abstract available.
Humans ; Mentors*

This study aimed to assess the efficiency of delivering a 4-month course of “effective literature search” among medical postgraduate students for improving information literacy skills. This was a cross-sectional study in which 90 postgraduate students were randomly selected and participated in 12 training sessions. Effective search strategies were presented and the students' attitude and competency concerning online search were measured by a pre- and post-questionnaires and skill tests. Data were analyzed by SPSS version 16 using t-test. There was a significant improvement (p=0.00), in student's attitude. The mean (standard deviation [SD]) was 2.9 (0.8) before intervention versus the mean (SD) 3.9 (0.7) after intervention. Students'familiarity with medical resources and databases improved significantly. The data showed a significant increase (p=0.03), in students' competency score concerning search strategy design and conducting a search. The mean (SD) was 2.04 (0.7) before intervention versus the mean (SD) 3.07 (0.8) after intervention. Also, students' ability in applying search and meta search engine improved significantly. This study clearly acknowledges that the training intervention provides considerable opportunity to improve medical student's information literacy skills.
Cross-Sectional Studies ; Education ; Health Services ; Humans ; Information Literacy* ; Search Engine ; Students, Medical

PURPOSE: The Mongolian National University of Medical Sciences is the only national university in Mongolia and has produced more than 90% of health professionals in the country. Experts from Mongolia and Korea embarked on a collaborative effort to develop educational programs for faculty development based on the personal and professional needs of faculty members. This study aimed to evaluate the outcomes of those educational programs to determine whether this transnational collaboration was successful. METHODS: A needs assessment survey was conducted among 325 faculty members. Based on the results of this survey, the joint expert team developed educational programs on seven core topics: clinical teaching, curriculum development, e-learning, item writing, medical research, organizational culture, and resident selection. Surveys evaluating the satisfaction and the attitudes of the participants were conducted for each program. RESULTS: Throughout the 17-day program, 16 experts from Korea and 14 faculty members from Mongolia participated as instructors, and a total of 309 participants attended the program. The average satisfaction score was 7.15 out of 8.0, and the attitudes of the participants towards relevant competencies significantly improved after each educational program. CONCLUSION: The faculty development programs that were developed and implemented as part of this transnational collaboration between Mongolia and Korea are expected to contribute to the further improvement of health professions education in Mongolia. Future studies are needed to evaluate the long-term outcomes of these educational programs.
Cooperative Behavior* ; Curriculum ; Education* ; Health Occupations* ; Humans ; Joints ; Korea ; Medical Writing ; Mongolia* ; Needs Assessment ; Organizational Culture

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to examine the academic achievement of the first year medical students at Gachon University of Medicine and Science based on their characteristics (i.e. age, gender, and academic degree types (bachelors/masters), field of major (biology/ non-biology), and admission variables (i.e. MEET, GPA, attitude, interview, and English test). METHODS: The admission scores and demographic information were obtained from 39 students who had entered the university in 2005. T-test was used to examine the differences in academic achievement according to the students' characteristics. Correlations between admission variables and academic achievements were examined while multiple regression analysis was used to decipher the influence of students' characteristics and admission variables on the academic achievements. RESULTS: This study showed that the academic achievements differed significantly depending on degree level, age, and field of study, but not gender. It was also found that both the Nature Science Reasoning (NSR) of MEET subscale score and GPA score correlated significantly with academic achievement in the first year students. Attitude, interview, and English test scores did not correlate significantly. The result of the multiple regression analysis revealed that NSR 1 and 2, field of major, and age accounted for a substantial amount of the variance in academic achievement. CONCLUSION: Students with higher scores in NSR 1 and 2 who majored in biology-related fieldsand who are younger tend to do better academically in their first year of medical school. The results of this study may be helpful to graduate medical schools in designing effective admissions strategies for recruiting students, as well as, in planning the curriculum to improve the academic achievements of medical students.
Curriculum ; Humans ; Schools, Medical* ; Students, Medical

PURPOSE: We specifically investigated the young doctor (residents) patient doctor-patient relationship in Korea. A society built on Confucianism, age is expected to affect even the doctor-patient relationship. METHODS: 57 residents participated and answered 6 open-ended questions. 90 patients of various age participated and answered 3 open-ended and 6 close-ended questions. RESULTS: It seems that the general problem of the doctor-patient relationships was related to attitudes and communication skills. Over 80% of the residents felt uncomfortable and received inappropriate verbal expressions and attitudes from their patients simply because they were young or younger than the patients. This negative experience resulted mostly from the residents' self-perceived lack of experience and clinical competence and the patients' distrust of young doctors. As for the patients, over 80% preferred middle-aged doctors to young doctors. Middleaged doctors were thought to be easier to understand, better mannered, more humane, and clinically competent. Most residents expected professional respect from their patients, while patients expected kindness and humility from the young doctors. This shows a gap in the reciprocal expectations between residents and patients. CONCLUSION: Young doctors are perceived as inexperienced and incompetent and, consequently, not trusted by patients in Korea. To improve the resident-patient relationship, improvement in attitude and communication skills is needed.
Clinical Competence ; Confucianism ; Humans ; Korea

PURPOSE: To motivate students to participate in debates and to secure the quality of discussion, score-keeping team competition was introduced to middle- to large-sized discussion groups. METHODS: 95 students of a medical ethics class were divided into 20 teams. After each team presented its opinion on a few ethical issues debatable, all teams began debating on the issues. In each session, a certain number of points was given to the presenters. Randomly selected nine students made up a jury. The jury decided on the quality of the debate and judged whether the teams participated lost or kept their points. At the completion of the module, the students were surveyed about their experiences with the score-keeping competition. RESULTS: The motivation for participation from a score-keeping competition was so powerful that in most sessions, many students did not have a chance to speak due to overwhelming number of debaters. Students who participated less eagerly ascribed their experience to their lack of ability to speak out. A major problem expressed by many students was that they felt morally bad about taking away points from their friends. In actuality though, this moral inhibition was weaker than the motivation for competition they felt. The opinion survey showed that the students who felt moral inhibition participated even more eagerly in the debates than those who did not feel bad. CONCLUSION: In middle- to large-sized groups, score-keeping competition was a strong motivation for students to participate. And lessening the moral inhibition would lead to livelier debates. Thus, it would be helpful to develop modified methods of distributing points such as giving out new points and not simply relocating those already given out.
Ethics ; Ethics, Medical ; Friends ; Humans ; Motivation

PURPOSE: Evaluation and feedback are fundamental components in a residency program. A portfolio assessment system is an appropriate option for making formative assessments, particularly for a family medicine resident whose training includes rotations through various disciplines at multiple locations. However, a paper-based portfolio assessment system has limitations when applied to a clinical environment due to how it is managed and cared. This study assessed the satisfaction and utility of a paper-based portfolio assessment system, and then designed and implemented a web-based portfolio assessment system for family medicine residents. METHODS: A self-administered questionnaire focusing on the satisfaction and utility of a paperbased portfolio assessment system was given to 23 family medicine residents. A web-based portfolio assessment system was then designed using the component-based development approach. RESULTS: The overall satisfaction and utility with the paper-based portfolio assessment system were low. Fifteen residents (62.5%) reported that following a paper-based portfolio assessment system was sometimes a waste of time and only three (13.0%) reported having no problems. The web-based portfolio assessment system was successfully designed to be easy to implement and user-friendly. CONCLUSION: The web-based portfolio assessment system is expected to overcome the shortcomings of a paper-based portfolio assessment system and improve the level of satisfaction of medical residents. It is expected that the web-based portfolio assessment system designed in this study will be an additional tool for family medicine residencies.
Education ; Educational Measurement ; Humans ; Internship and Residency* ; Korea* ; Surveys and Questionnaires

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to explore the relation of self-efficacy with environmental factors, personality, and academic achievement in medical students. METHODS: Study subjects consisted of 141 first-year medical students at Korea University Medical School during one academic year (2003~2004). All participants completed a 24-item questionnaire on self-efficacy beliefs, a 16-item questionnaire asking demographic and socioeconomic data, and the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI). Spearman'sorrelation of selfefficacy with other variables was generated. The differences of self-efficacy scores according to the level of satisfaction with school life, total family income per month and the reasons for entering medical college were analyzed by ANOVA. RESULTS: Age and overall satisfaction with school correlated with self-confidence and total family income per month was related to self-regulation. Students who entered medical college due to the socioeconomic stability of medicine showed significantly lower preference for task difficulty than those who had other reasons for entering medical college. The GPAs of premedical studies correlated with self-regulation and the GPAs of Med 1 and the cumulative GPAs of premedical and Med I were related to the preference for task difficulty. CONCLUSION: This result supports that self-efficacy beliefs were related with some environmental factors, personality and academic achievements in medical students.
Humans ; Korea ; Schools, Medical ; Students, Medical* ; Temperament ; Surveys and Questionnaires

PURPOSE: This study was designed to investigate the effects of information sharing between students on results of clinical performance examination (CPX). METHODS: 143 third-year students, who completed their core clinical clerkship, were randomly assigned to one day of a 3-day, 6 station CPX. Station checklists, scored by the SP(s), consisted of history taking, physical examination, information sharing, clinical courtesy and patient-physician interaction. We compared the CPX station scores, CPX domain scores, self assessment scores and GPA of the three groups tested on different days with ANOVA, and analyzed the differences in CPX scores, after controlling for GPA, with ANCOVA. The correlations among the CPX total and domain scores, self assessment and the GPA of the 3rd year students were calculated. Data regarding information sharing between students and self-assessment were obtained through student questionnaires. RESULTS: CPX total scores, self assessment scores and GPA of 3rd year students from day-2 were significantly higher than scores from day-1 or day-3. Checklist analysis showed that PE, CC and PPI scores were significantly higher on day-2, but Hx and IS scores were not significantly different. Results from questionnaires showed that 43% of students shared evaluation information. And CPX total scores had little correlation with self assessment scores. GPA of 3rd year students showed a similar pattern with the CPX totalscore. CONCLUSION: There is information sharing occurring between students during clinical performance examinations. Although there are significant differences in CPXscores for the treatment group, it seemed that CPX scores are not affected by information sharing between students. Reliability of information sharing from other students is low. The generalization of this study should be interpreted carefully.
Checklist ; Clinical Clerkship ; Generalization (Psychology) ; Humans ; Information Dissemination* ; Physical Examination ; Self-Assessment ; Surveys and Questionnaires

PURPOSE: With our medical school accepting graduate level students, there may be more conflicts between the older students and hospital employees. These issues need to be dealt with in order to improve the quality of education of medical students during clerkship. This study aims to improve the setting of clerkship by analysing how knowledgeable hospital employees are about medical school clerkship. METHODS: Study subjects included 206 hospital employees working at a university hospital in Pusan. Subjects completed a self-reported questionnaires on the hospital employees' knowledge about medical student's clerkship. Means and standard deviations were based on a five point scale, and data were analyzed using statistical methods including chi-square-test, two-sample t-test, ANOVA, and partial correlation. RESULTS: Opinions about the awareness of educational role of the university hospital, necessity of clerkship, influence that clerkship has on doctor's careers, necessity for clerkship students to understand roles of other hospital employees, and degree to which hospital employee explain their roles to clerkship students, were positive, but opinions about the attitudes of clerkship students were neutral, and opinions about attachment to clerkship students, clerkship students' efforts to understand the roles of hospital employees were negative. Opinions about the necessity of clerkship, influence that clerkship had on doctor's careers, clerkship students' efforts to understand roles of hospital employees showed significantly positive correlations with opinions about the attitude of clerkship students, attachment to clerkship students and the degree of explaining hospital employee's roles to clerkship students. CONCLUSION: To increase attentiveness in hospital employees towards medical clerkships, it seems necessary both to educate hospital employees on the clerkship itself and on working together with medical students, and to have clerkship students continue to be taught on the roles of other employees of the hospital.
Busan ; Education ; Humans ; Schools, Medical ; Students, Medical ; Surveys and Questionnaires