BACKGROUND AND CURRENT CONCEPTS: Conversion of 'all' medical colleges to medical schools had been tried by governmental force based on political, non-educational reasons and caused so many problems and conflicts. TEACHING POINTS AND CONCLUSION: Our medical education system should be re-designed in 2010 on the base of agreement among the various stakeholders in our society respecting public interest and autonomy of university.
Education, Medical ; Schools, Medical

This is made for teachers of medical schools not only to mark examination papers but also to do an item analysis easily. Functions of the program are marking examination result in text file, input of the result of descriptive examination, providing the result of item analysis according to the classical test theory(mean, standard deviation, reliability coefficient, answer response distribution, difficulty index, discriminating index, estimated number of examinee who select wrong answer), adding, saving and printing the results, providing, saving and printing record sheet, adding the results of equal or more than two separate examinations, sorting the record sheet by examinee's identification number and by record, input windows for item, and automatic inclusion of the result of item analysis in the item window. Much number of teachers of the medical schools may be encouraged to use this program to promote the quality of the evaluation.
Education, Medical* ; Schools, 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

No abstract available.
Education, Medical*

No abstract available.
Education, Medical*

No abstract available.
Education, Medical*

No abstract available.
Education, Medical*

No abstract available.
Education, Medical

No abstract available.
Schools, Medical*