scholarly journals Empathy variation of undergraduate medical students after early clinical contact: a cross-sectional study in China

BMJ Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. e035690
Author(s):  
Xiong Ye ◽  
Haiying Guo ◽  
Zhou Xu ◽  
Hui Xiao

ObjectivesEmpathy education is very important for medical students. There is little research on the influence of early clinical practice on the development of empathy and other aspects of professionalism in medical students. The aim of this study was to compare the self-reported empathy levels of first-year and second-year undergraduate medical students before and after their early clinical contact curriculum.SettingThe study was conducted at the Shanghai University of Medicine & Health Sciences, Shanghai, China.ParticipantsA total of 257 undergraduate medical students participated in the study. The 154 first-year students were studying in 10 community-based teaching hospitals, and the 103 second-year students were studying in 3 university-affiliated hospitals.Primary and secondary outcome measuresPrimary measures: the Jefferson Scale of Empathy—Student version (JSE-S) was compared between students of different sexes and in different academic years before their early clinical contact course. Secondary measures: comparisons were made after they finished the curriculum 3 weeks later.ResultsA total of 219 of 257 students responded (85.21% response rate), and 214 answers could be analysed (135 first-year and 79 second-year students; 120 female and 94 male individuals). No significant differences in the empathy scores before early clinical contact were observed between students of different sexes and in different academic years. After early clinical contact, the mean JSE-S score of the participants was significantly higher than the mean score at the beginning of the curriculum.ConclusionsEmpathy-focused training during early clinical contact can improve the empathetic capacity of undergraduate medical students. Fostering empathetic attitudes among undergraduate medical students is necessary for the early stage of their medical education. Further research is needed on the long-term effects of empathy-focused education in entry-level medical students.

Author(s):  
Rohini Gupta ◽  
Apoorva Malhotra ◽  
Pavan Malhotra

Background: Antibiotics are one of the commonest prescribing drugs in day to day practice. However indiscriminate and irrational use of antibiotics has given rise to the emergence of antibiotic resistance. Thus, intervention in the form of educating students and making them aware about this important concept should be initiated at the gross root level right from the beginning of medical profession. Objective was to assess the comparative awareness regarding antimicrobial resistance between first and second year MBBS students.Methods: This was a comparative, cross-sectional questionnaire based study. Two forty six undergraduate medical students, 118 students from 1st year and 129 students from 2nd year MBBS were included in the study to assess the extent of knowledge and about the problem of antibiotic resistance. Self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the data from respondents. The questionnaires of both the groups were analyzed for the responses of the students and were compared using student ‘t’ test and chi-square test.Results: Majority of the participants 63.6% and 72.9% had completed the full course of antibiotics as prescribed by the physician. Statistically significant difference (p<0.05) was found between the two groups where in 58.4% of the first year and 16.3% of the second year students were of the view that antibiotics can be used for viral illnesses. Only 44.1% students of first year knew the reasons for antibiotic resistance.Conclusions: It can be concluded from the present study that second year medical students were more aware regarding antimicrobial resistance as compared to first year MBBS students who represented the general public. Thus, it is very important to educate the students in a practical manner about this concept as they are the future health care givers who can promote the rational use of antibiotics in near future.


2021 ◽  
pp. 155982762110181
Author(s):  
Sam Sugimoto ◽  
Drew Recker ◽  
Elizabeth E. Halvorson ◽  
Joseph A. Skelton

Background. Many diseases are linked to lifestyle in the United States, yet physicians receive little training in nutrition. Medical students’ prior knowledge of nutrition and cooking is unknown. Objective. To determine incoming medical students’ prior nutrition knowledge, culinary skills, and nutrition habits. Methods. A dual-methods study of first-year medical students. Cross-sectional survey assessing prior knowledge, self-efficacy, and previous education of cooking and nutrition. Interviews of second-year medical students explored cooking and nutrition in greater depth. Results. A total of 142 first-year medical students participated; 16% had taken a nutrition course, with majority (66%) learning outside classroom settings. Students had a mean score of 87% on the Nutritional Knowledge Questionnaire versus comparison group (64.9%). Mean cooking and food skills score were lower than comparison scores. Overall, students did not meet guidelines for fiber, fruit, vegetables, and whole grains. Interviews with second-year students revealed most learned to cook from their families; all believed it important for physicians to have this knowledge. Conclusions. Medical students were knowledgeable about nutrition, but typically self-taught. They were not as confident or skilled in cooking, and mostly learned from their family. They expressed interest in learning more about nutrition and cooking.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chelsea Stunden ◽  
Sima Zakani ◽  
Avery Martin ◽  
Shreya Moodley ◽  
John Jacob

BACKGROUND The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had significant effects on anatomy education. During the pandemic, students have had no access to cadavers, which has been the principal way of learning anatomy. We created and tested a customized congenital heart disease e-learning course for medical students that contained interactive 3D models of anonymized pediatric congenital heart defects. OBJECTIVE To assess if a multimodal e-learning course contributed to learning outcomes in a cohort of first year undergraduate medical students study congenital heart diseases. Secondarily, we assess student attitudes and experiences associated with multimodal e-learning. METHODS The pre/post study design involved 290 first year undergraduate medical students. Recruitment was conducted through the course instructors. Data were collected before using the course and after using the course. The primary outcome was knowledge acquisition (test scores). The secondary outcome included attitudes and experiences, as well as time to complete the modules, and browser metadata. RESULTS A total of 141 students were included in the final analysis (N=141). Students’ knowledge significantly improved by an average of 44.6% when using the course (SD 1.73, Z = -10.287, p < 0.001). 88.26% of students were highly motivated to learn with the course and 93.5% of students reported positive experiences with the course. There was a strong correlation between attitudes and experiences, which was statistically significant (rs = 0.687, p<0.001, N = 122). There were no relationships found between change test scores and attitudes or experiences (p>0.05). Students most frequently completed the e-learning course with Chrome (77.3%), and on Apple MacOS (61.0%) or Windows 10 (36.9%). Most students had devices with high-definition screens (83.0%). Most students (58.9%) completed the course in under 3 hours. CONCLUSIONS Multi-modal e-learning could be a viable solution to improving learning outcomes and experiences for undergraduate medical students, who do not have access to cadavers. Future research should focus on validating long-term learning outcomes. CLINICALTRIAL n/a


Author(s):  
Shikha Gautam ◽  
Salamah Parveen Imteyaz ◽  
Mohammed Iqbal Alam

Introduction: The coronavirus pandemic has involved nearly all the countries of the world. The lockdowns and closure of educational institutes to reduce the risk of disease transmission has brought a change in the medium of teaching as most educational institutes have moved to the online mode. There is a widespread increase in stress as the number of cases and mortality associated with Coronavirus 2019 disease (COVID-19) continue each day. Aim: To assess the stress status of first year undergraduate medical students in reference to the coronavirus pandemic and the perception of first year undergraduate medical students in reference to the E-learning being carried out during the coronavirus pandemic. Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional web-based online survey that was conducted using a questionnaire in August 2020 at Hamdard Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, New Delhi, India. The questionnaire was prepared and reviewed by the involved faculty members of the project and it was approved by a faculty from Department of Psychiatry. Reliability of questionnaire was measured using Cronbach’s alpha (0.89). A questionnaire with 20 questions was administered via Google forms to all 100 students of first year MBBS course. Some of the questions in the questionnaire were framed to assess the stress status of the students; some were designed to study students’ perception of E-learning. Data was represented as the percentage distribution of response for each question. Results: Ninety five responses were received, after accounting for exclusion factors; data was compiled for 91 respondents. Out of the 91 participants in the study, 48.4% were males (n=44) and 51.6% were females (n=47). Most of the students in this study (84.6%) felt that online teaching had helped in learning Physiology theory; around 43% students found online practical teaching useful. Around 39% students have reported internet connectivity issues all the time while 59% faced problem sometimes. Total 51.6% of students had difficulty in accessibility to devices. Due to coronavirus pandemic, 37.4% of students have reported to be under stress. Around 33% reported feeling unsafe all the time while 39.5% felt unsafe some of the times. Conclusion: Students found online teaching more helpful in learning Physiology theory than practical. Majority of class reported internet connectivity issues. All the responders agreed that this pandemic affected their regular life. Most of the students felt that online classes have helped them to remain positive and motivated towards study.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (SPL2) ◽  
pp. 21-24
Author(s):  
Mahati Sundar ◽  
Archana R

A health professional requires resilience to be able to handle the depression, anxiety and stress, which may occur when they are in the field. Resilience is theability to tackle and overcome difficulties, with personal transformation and growth. Studies in undergraduate medical students have shown a difference in the stress scores of males and females, showing the possibility of gender difference in coping strategies and resilience. Therefore, the objective of the study was to assess the resilience scores of undergraduate medical students and to find out the existence of gender differences in their resilience scores. A cross-sectional study was conducted among the first and second-year MBBS students of 18-25 years of age after obtaining informed consent and Institutional ethical clearance. All willing male and female students fulfilling the inclusion and exclusion criteria formed the study participants. A standard resilience questionnaire was used to assess the resilience scores of the students and the male and female participants scores were noted separately. A total of of282 first and second-year undergraduate medical students participated in the study. A significantly higher percentage of female students had a high resilience score in comparison to male participants. Our study highlights the fact that females have a higher resilience compared to males. But still, the majority of male and female students are having moderate resilience. Thus, the future focus should be on the promotion of resilience-building measures to be taught to the students early in their medical curriculum to successfully tackle the stressful situations.


Author(s):  
Maria Mathew ◽  
Navya C J ◽  
Vidhu M Joshy

Coping strategies used by an individual for stress determine its effect on health and the body’s functioning. Academic challenges make the first year medical students disparately susceptible to it. A cross-sectional study was conducted among the first year undergraduate medical students of a private medical college in Thrissur, Kerala to find the prevalence of stress and the coping strategies used with the help of pretested and validated questionnaire containing the Perceived Stress Scale 10 (PSS-10) and Brief COPE Inventory. 73% of the students had moderate stress and, 20% of the students had high-stress scores. Self-distraction and religion {(6.66 ±1.52), (6.55 ±1.58)}were the most common coping strategies used by the boys and girls respectively. The prevalence of stress was high among the first year undergraduate medical students and those with high-stress scores were found to use maladaptive coping strategies.


Author(s):  
Srinivas Rao Ganta ◽  
Kiran Pamarthi ◽  
Lakshmi Prasad K. K.

Background: Organ transplantation is one of the greatest scientific advances and remains one of the most challenging and complex field of modern medicine. In the USA and UK, the organ donation rate is 26 and 14 per million, whereas in India, it is only 0.34 per million population. Healthcare professionals act as the critical link in the organ procurement process because they are the first individuals to establish relationship with the potential donors' family.Methods: An institution based descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among first year undergraduate medical students during November 2017. Convenient sampling method was used to obtain the sample size. Out of 150 students in first year, 136 students fulfilling the inclusion and exclusion criteria were studied.Results: Out of 136 students who participated in the study, 58 (42.6%) were boys and 78 (57.4%) were girls. All the 136 (100%) students had heard about organ donation, but only 24 (17.6%) of them were aware of organ donation associations. Very few students (5, 3.6%) know about any law related to organ donation in India. Mass media like TV, Internet and Newspapers have played a major role in imparting awareness regarding organ donation among students besides relatives and friends. Majority of the students i.e. 104 (76.4%) were ready to donate their organs if need comes and two third of them accepted that they would allow organ donation from a member of their family after Brainstem death.Conclusions: There is a positive attitude of medical students towards organ donation but there is lack of sufficient knowledge on the topic. Improving their knowledge by including organ donation topic in medical curriculum can help to reduce this gap.


Author(s):  
Krutarth R. Brahmbhatt ◽  
Amul B. Patel

Background: Antimicrobial-resistant organisms are spreading worldwide, and the pipeline for new antimicrobials remains meager. The next generation of doctors must be better prepared to use antimicrobials more sparingly and appropriately.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among undergraduate medical students of GMERS Medical College Junagadh from January to May 2017. Self-administered structured close ended questionnaire in English was used. Pearson’s correlation co-efficient, t test and ANOVA were used as tests of significance.Results: Total 130 students participated in the study. Participation of females (48.5%) and males (51.5%) was almost equal. Almost 60% participants had adequate knowledge about antimicrobial resistance. The mean antimicrobial resistance knowledge score of participants was 22.7 (SD: ±5.27, min: 8, max: 37).Conclusions:Important finding of the study was that just one forth of the participants agreed that information they have received so far in medical course regarding antimicrobial resistance is adequate. The budding doctors should receive correct, adequate information regarding antimicrobial resistance.  


Author(s):  
Jatinkumar Amaliyar ◽  
Krunal Modi

Background: Undergraduate medical education in India and many developing nations is facing new challenges today. Multiple stressors including academic burden, parental pressure and even psychological ailments affect medical students. Depression, burnout and stress are commonly seen in medical students. This increases psychiatric morbidity and affects performance.              This study was conducted to extract the factors which are important factors for the effective learning of students and influences their performance during curriculum.Methods: This cross sectional and descriptive study was carried out among 100 MBBS student of 2015 of GMERS medical college, Dharpur-Patan during March to April 2018. Students were administered pre-designed and structured questionnaire after obtaining their informed consent while seated in the lecture hall. Responses of questionnaires were analyzed with Epi Info 7.0 and MS Excel. Frequencies and percentages were calculated and Chi-square test was applied to find out significance.Results: Most important factors which were affecting students’ performance in our study were language problems, competent teachers, social media and campus environment. 70% students have no issue with financial status. Majority students prefer self study.Conclusions: Identification of hidden factors affecting academic performance is very important in very early stage so they can perform better in their study in future. Language, hostel environment, teachers’ attitude towards students etc are also certain important factors which help students to perform better in curriculum.


Author(s):  
Sajjan Madappady ◽  
Hemant Kumar ◽  
S. Jayaram ◽  
Krutarth Brahmbhatt ◽  
Manjula Anil ◽  
...  

Background: Tobacco kills more than seven million people each year. In India tobacco kills nearly one million people each year and many of these deaths occur among people who are very young. Studies indicate that approximately 70% of all tobacco users would like to quit smoking and tobacco use.Methods: A non-randomized, cross sectional study was conducted in a Medical College in Mangaluru (Karnataka) which included medical students from first year to third year. A module developed by “Quit Tobacco International” was used for the purpose of training and counselling the selected medical students, focusing on the specific effects of tobacco, depicting simulated case scenarios.Results: A total of 404 medical students were included in the study. It was observed that 15.9% males and 5.3% females among first year students, 21.0% males and 5.3% females among second year students and 24.6% males and 9.2% females among third year students had smoked at some point in their life while the among current users, the prevalence of smoking was found to be much higher i.e. 8.7% and 2.6% among first year students, 9.9% and 3.5% among second year students; while it as highest among third year students i.e. 14% and 4.6%; among boys and girls respectively.Conclusions: The study brings out the need for inclusion of structured teaching and training of our medical students on harmful effects of tobacco use and its cessation techniques.


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