Objectives: The objective of this study was to compare empathy levels between first year and second year medical students at a Malaysian University. Setting: A Malaysian University offering undergraduate medicine. Participants: 204 undergraduate medical students were included in the data analysis (122 first years, and 102 second years). Main outcome measure: Self-reported empathy scores using the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy (Student Version) JSPE-S. Results: The mean empathy score for first year students was 112.1(SD=10.7). This was significantly higher (p<0.038; d=0.31) than second year students (mean=108.8, SD=10.4). No significant difference relating to gender was identified. Conclusion: Cross-sectional results from this study found that that there were differences in self-reported empathy scores between year one and year two students. Further research is required to ascertain if these differences are maintained as students’ progress thought their medical degree, and whether other factors such as internships, medical rotations or clinical supervision have any impact of medical students’ empathy levels.
Students, Medical

Background: Misinterpretation of abbreviations by healthcare workers has been reported to compromise patient safety. Medical students are future doctors. We explored how early medical students acquired the practice of using abbreviations, and their ability to interpret commonly used abbreviations in medical practice. Method: Eighty junior and 74 senior medical students were surveyed using a self-administered questionnaire designed to capture demographic data; frequency and reasons for using abbreviations; from where abbreviations were learned; frequency of encountering abbreviations in medical practice; prevalence of mishaps due to misinterpretation; and the ability of students to correctly interpret commonly used abbreviations. Comparisons were made between senior and junior medical students. Results: Abbreviation use was highly prevalent among junior and senior medical students. They acquired the habit mainly from the clinical notes of doctors in the hospital. They used abbreviations mainly to save time, space and avoid writing in full sentences. The students experienced difficulties, frustrations and often resorted to guesswork when interpreting abbreviations; with junior students experiencing these more than senior students. The latter were better at interpreting standard and nonstandard abbreviations. Nevertheless, the students felt the use of abbreviations was necessary and acceptable. Only a few students reported encountering mishaps in patient management as a result of misinterpretation of abbreviations. Conclusion: Medical students acquired the habit of using abbreviations early in their training. Senior students knew more and correctly interpreted more standard and non-standard abbreviations compared to junior students. Medical students should be taught to use standard abbreviations only.
Students, Medical

Background: Life in a medical school is stressful for just about every medical student. Academic stress in small doses heightens the energy and awareness, giving one that mood most refer to as “pumped up” or “wired”. When the incremental progression of stress brought about by health and emotional factors compounded by social and fi nancial problems, overwhelmingly surpasses one’s ability to cope, it leads to feelings of being “burnt out” or “stressed out”. It can have a negative impact on a medical student’s cognitive and psychological functioning resulting in poor academic performance. Each person has his or her own unique way of dealing with it; some may outwit pressure without a bad outcome, while others just simply succumb to it. Purpose: A vast majority of research on academic stress is centered on its contributing factors and how they affect other aspects of students’ lives. Coping mechanisms and effective ways in dealing with stress have also been delved into, but none have dwelt on a study of the medical students’ lived experience of academic stress. There was no study found in literature which examined and collectively characterized the different phases that medical students go through in coping with academic stress, hence the impetus to undertake this study. Anchored on the Transactional Model of coping with stress, this study was undertaken to answer the central question: How do Filipino medical students collectively characterize the phases they undergo in coping with the stresses in medical school? Design: The methodological underpinnings of this study are based on phenomenology. The objective of Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) is to understand how a particular phenomenon is constituted from the participant’s perspective. It offers researchers the opportunity to learn from the insights of experts – the research participants themselves. The respondents’ insights were gathered through narratives culled through a guided semi-structured questionnaire patterned after social networking sites, allowing the respondents to liberally exploit their voices and thoughts. Narrative accounts gathered focused on the medical student’s daily activities, matters that precipitate anxiety, their views on stress, and methods of coping. Through cool and warm analyses, the narratives were ultimately subjected to phenomenological reduction. Findings : Fascinatingly, after subjecting the narratives to a thorough and comprehensive phenomenological analysis, six emergent themes surfaced which collectively characterized the phases our respondent medical students underwent in coping with academic stress: Self-effacement Phase (Sensing inner trepidation), Self-awareness Phase (Settling in new surroundings), Self-weariness Phase (Struggling through stress) Self-attentiveness Phase (Staying focused to survive), Self-equilibrium Phase (Sustaining a state of symmetry), and Self-mastery Phase (Striving towards sovereignty and satisfaction). The “Tightrope” is a representation that lucidly embodies these six themes. Conclusion Our respondents have experienced substantial challenges in medicine: they surmounted their inner trepidation; settled and acclimatized to their new surroundings; gained the courage to outwit stress and struggles; fought to strive, survive and stay focused; learned to maintain a state of balance and symmetry; and fi nally lived up to a sense of sovereignty and self-satisfaction. It is just a matter of perspective and attitude that demarcates a victor from a slacker.
Students, Medical

Background: The medical curriculum is one of the most stressful academic curricula worldwide. Studies indicate that great levels of stress, that encompass academics to personal life, may be connected to a number of worrying statistics for the mental health of Philippine medical students. Objectives: To develop a validated stressor-coping style scale for students in a public medical school. Methods: The study employed a sequential mixed-methods design. An open-ended questionnaire was used to determine the common stressors and coping styles through convenience sampling. A scale was constructed from this data and was statistically tested for concurrent validity and reliability from a random sample. Results: Following thematic analysis, an initial six stressor domains and eleven coping mechanisms were identified. However, after item analysis and principal component analysis of responses, the scale was transformed to seven stressor domains and five coping mechanism domains. All of which are deemed internally consistent (α>0.6). Scores from the scale were also convergent with the scores of Brief COPE (r=0.5 to 0.9). Conclusions The developed stressor-coping style scale for medical students is a reliable and valid tool for Filipino medical students in a public medical school.
Students, Medical

Medical students are future doctors who are trained to treat all kinds of diseases including people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) without prejudice. Teaching basic scientifi c knowledge and technical skills is no longer adequate for today’s medical students. There is also a need for them to be provided with high personal and professional values. This study examined stigmatizing attitude towards people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) among the medical students in a public medical school. The participants were stratifi ed to preclinical-year (year 1 and year 2) and clinical-year (year 3 and year 4) medical students. Simple random sampling was carried out to select 170 participants from each category of students. Self-administered questionnaires captured socio-demographic data, HIV/AIDS knowledge and stigmatisation attitudes towards PLWHA. Multiple linear regression was used to assess the relationship between ethnic groups and stigmatization attitude. Three hundred and forty participants were recruited. Malay medical students who did not have previous encounter with PLWHA were associated with stigmatizing attitude towards HIV/AIDS patients, whereas clinical-year medical students who had no clinical encounter with PLWHA were more likely to feel uncomfortable with PLWHA. Malay ethnicity and medical students in clinical years who had not encounter a PLWHA were more likely to have stigmatizing attitude towards PLWHA. Keywords:
Students, Medical ; Education, Medical

Background: Clinical reasoning is the name given to the cognitive processes by which doctors evaluate and analyse information from patients. It is a skill developed by experiential learning and is difficult to assess objectively. The script concordance test, an assessment tool introduced into the health sciences about 15 years ago, is a way of assessing clinical reasoning ability in an objective manner and allows comparisons of the decisions made by medical students and experts in situations of uncertainty. Methods: Twenty-six final year medical students from the International Medical University, Kuala Lumpur, were tested on their decision making skills regarding a young febrile patient. The students evaluated different pieces of information in five different scenarios and made decisions on a five-point Likert scale in the standard format of the script concordance test. Their decisions were compared to the decisions of a panel of experienced clinicians in Internal Medicine. Results: The script concordance test scores for the different scenarios were calculated with higher scores being indicative of greater concordance between the reasoning of students and doctors. The students showed poor concordance with doctors in evaluating clinical information. Overall, only 20 percent of the choices made by students were the same as the choices made by the majority of doctors. Conclusion: Medical students vary in their ability to interpret the significance of clinical information. Using the script concordance test, this preliminary study looked at the ability of final year medical students to interpret information about a patient with a febrile illness. The results showed poor concordance between students and doctors in the way they interpreted clinical information. The script concordance test has the potential to be a tool for teaching and assessing clinical reasoning.
Students, Medical ; Education, Medical

In May 1999, we performed a study of evaluation of HBV infection by ELISA techniques for HBsAg, Anti-HBs and Anti- HBc in the sera. 206 medical students(2 -year grade, Faculty of Medicine, Ho Chi Minh City) were enrolled with the following results: 112(54%) students without infection (HbsAg (-), Anti- HBs (+), 16(8%) carriers with 14(6%) having HbsAg (+) and 2(2%) infected only with Anti-HBc (+). Of the 16 carriers, there were 2 cases with hepatitis (ALT>= 100UI/I). In conclusion, with our findings, we noted that 8% medical students were carriers, they need an adequate information for preventing the contamination between health -care providers and patients, 54% students need urgently a vaccine for protecting themselves from the HBV infection.
Hepatitis B ; Students ; Students, Medical

No abstract available.
Education, Medical* ; Humans ; Students, Medical*

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to investigate applicants' behavioral characteristics based on the evaluation of cognitive, affective and social domain shown in self introduction letter and professor's recommendation letter. METHODS: Self introduction letters and professor's recommendation letters of 109 applicants students who applied to medical school were collected. Frequency analysis and simple correlation were done in self introduction letter and professor's recommendation letter. RESULTS: Frequency analysis showed affective characteristics were most often mentioned in self introduction letter, and cognitive characteristics were most frequently described in professor's recommendation letter. There was a strong correlation between cognitive domains of self introduction letter and cognitive domain of professor's recommendation letter. There was a strong correlation between affective domain of self introduction letter and cognitive domain professor's recommendation letter. CONCLUSION: It is very important to make full use of self introduction letter and professor's recommendation letter for selecting medical students. Through the frequency analysis and simple correlation, more specific guidelines need to be suggested in order to secure fairness and objectivity in the evaluation of self-introduction letter and professor's recommendation letter.
Humans ; Schools, Medical ; Students, Medical

No abstract available.
Education, Medical* ; Humans ; Students, Medical*