1.Malaysian Medical Students’ self-reported Empathy: A cross-sectional Comparative Study
Brett Williams ; Sivalal Sadasivan ; Amudha Kadirvelu
The Medical Journal of Malaysia 2015;70(2):76-80
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
2.A comparative study on how medical students learn about the use of abbreviations in medical practice
Farah Syazana Ahmad Shahabuddin ; Nur Hazirah Ahmat ; Ahmed Ikhwan Mohamad ; Kit Mun Lau ; Siti Aisyah Mohd Yusof ; Pei Chiek The ; Kwee Choy Koh
International e-Journal of Science, Medicine and Education 2015;9(2):13-21
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
3.Life on a tightrope: An interpretive phenomenological analysis of narratives of coping with academic stress among Filipino medical students
Elizabeth Aileen GARAN-GILLER ; Dominico Carlo S DATOR ; Mart Blas Angelo P JUAN ; Genevieve Anne R QUERUBIN ; Tiphanie P SEVILLA ; Maria Minerva P CALIMAG
Journal of Medicine University of Santo Tomas 2019;3(1):248-259
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
4.Development and validation of a stressor-coping style scale for students in a public medical school
Armando E. Chiong, III ; Elijah Juniel D. Corpus ; Sarah Peñ ; afrancia L. Coralde ; Nina Karen A. Coronel ; John Thomas Y. Chuatak ; Linnaeus Louisse A. Cruz ; Francis Simonh M. Bries ; Carlos Diego A. Rozul
Acta Medica Philippina 2024;58(Early Access 2024):1-9
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
5.Ethnic Groups Difference in Discriminatory Attitude Towards HIV/AIDS Patients Among Medical Students: A Cross-Sectional Study
Malaysian Journal of Medicine and Health Sciences 2014;10(1):61-69
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
6.Assessing clinical reasoning skills of final year medical students using the scrip tconcordance test
Velayudhan Menon ; Rifdy Mohideen
International e-Journal of Science, Medicine and Education 2016;10(1):36-40
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
7.Hepatitis B viral infection in the medical students
Journal of Practical Medicine 2002;435(11):8-9
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
8.Views of Korean Medical Students on the Medical Education and Medical Care.
Kyung Hwan KIM ; Jung Han PARK
Journal of the Korean Medical Association 1999;42(3):234-237
No abstract available.
Education, Medical*
;
Humans
;
Students, Medical*
9.Analysis of characteristics shown in self introduction letter and professor's recommendation letter.
Korean Journal of Medical Education 2013;25(3):189-199
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
10.On Medical Student Enrollment and the Plan for the Development a Medical Education.
Journal of the Korean Medical Association 2000;43(10):940-941
No abstract available.
Education, Medical*
;
Humans
;
Students, Medical*