The Department of Hygiene and Preventive Medicine in Fukushima Medical University has carried out "Family Health Practice Tutorial" as part of social medicine training for undergraduate medical students. In this training, pairs of students, visited the same ordinary homes three times, and studied the Family Health Practices. Further learning was mainly offered in the tutorial, which is regarded as Problem-Based Learning. The visited family evaluated the students and gave feedback to them via their teachers. We herein present the report on the present state, evaluation method and tasks of the training. We also discuss the meaning of this training in medical education as well as future direction.

Background: The aims of the present study were to reveal the impact of the introduction of social medicine training one year earlier in a new university curriculum on subjective/objective evaluation of medical students, and to discuss the readiness of said students. Methods: In this natural experiment study, subjects comprised 73 third- (n = 31) and fourth-grade (n = 42) medical students who participated in social medicine training, namely “Family Health Practice Tutorial,” in 2017. The data consisted of student’s self-assessment and assessment from clients. The associations between these assessments and student grade were analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U test and ordinal logistic regression. Results: The score for “Language” in the assessment from the clients was significantly lower in the third-grade students than in the fourth-grade students after adjustment for gender (odds ratio = 0.147; 95% confidence interval = [0.027, 0.797]). Discussion: Insufficient readiness for language to residents in the community was found in third-grade medical students. Advanced communication training prior to practice for third-grade students may contribute to sustainable social medicine training in the community.

BACKGROUND: The facial expression of medical staff has been known to greatly affect the psychological state of patients, making them feel uneasy or conversely, cheering them up. By clarifying the characteristics of facial expression recognition ability in patients with Lewy body disease, the aim of this study is to examine points to facilitate smooth communication between caregivers and patients with the disease whose cognitive function has deteriorated. METHODS: During the period from March 2016 to July 2017, we examined the characteristics of recognition of the six facial expressions of "happiness," "sadness," "fear," "anger," "surprise," and "disgust" for 107 people aged 60 years or more, both outpatient and inpatient, who hospital specialists had diagnosed with Lewy body diseases of Parkinson's disease, Parkinson's disease with dementia, and dementia with Lewy bodies. Based on facial expression recognition test results, we classified them by cluster analysis and clarified features of each type. RESULTS: In patients with Lewy body disease, happiness was kept unaffected by aging, age of onset, duration of the disease, cognitive function, and apathy; however, recognizing the facial expression of fear was difficult. In addition, due to aging, cognitive decline, and apathy, the facial expression recognition ability for sadness and anger decreased. In particular, cognitive decline reduced recognition of all of the facial expressions except for happiness. The test accuracy rates were classified into three types using the cluster analysis: "stable type," "mixed type," and "reduced type". In the "reduced type", the overall facial recognition ability declined except happiness, and in the mixed type, recognition ability of anger particularly declined. CONCLUSION There were several facial expressions that the Lewy body disease patients were unable to accurately identify. Caregivers are recommended to make an effort to compensate for such situations with language or body contact, etc., as a way to convey correct feeling to the patients of each type.
Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Cluster Analysis ; Cognition ; physiology ; Emotions ; Facial Expression ; Facial Recognition ; physiology ; Female ; Humans ; Lewy Body Disease ; physiopathology ; psychology ; Male ; Middle Aged