scholarly journals Reflections on the Terminality of Life with Undergraduate Medical Students

2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Priscelly Cristina Castro Brito ◽  
Izaura Mariana Sobreiro ◽  
Dênia Amélia Novato Castelli von Atzingen ◽  
José Vitor da Silva ◽  
Adriana Rodrigues dos Anjos Mendonça
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Medical Students ◽  
Health Care Professionals ◽  
Medical Profession ◽  
Death And Dying ◽  
Actual Process ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Undergraduate Medical Students ◽  
Future Health ◽  
Academic Context

Abstract: Introduction: Death and dying are daily relevant themes for health care professionals and medical students. Nonetheless, since their first years of graduation, students are contrived to supplant the holistic conception of human beings and life in favor of enhancing the technical aspects of the medical profession. Methods: Therefore, in face of the few opportunities to enquire about these future professionals’ feelings and comprehensions toward life terminality, we pursued their perceptions through the application of a semi-structured questionnaire. Ten students from each year of the medical course at UNIVAS were interviewed, encompassing 60 scholars. Students should be regularly enrolled in the medical course, as well as give their consent, by signing the Consent Term, to participate in the study. The interviews took place at the institution and the material containing students’ responses was fully destroyed afterwards. Their responses were analyzed based on the Discourse of the Collective Subject Method. Results: The idea of terminality being properly the “end of life” was paramount among the years, situation with which a great amount of the scholars (58%) admitted not being prepared to deal with, due to the lack of reflections about death, its psychological aspects and repercussions in the academic context. Interestingly, about 16% of the scholars considered themselves prepared to deal with someone’s death, although they were not prepared to intervene in the actual process. This is reinforced by the fact that students must deal with the real scenario of giving undesirable news without previously being prepared to do so, by means of reflecting upon a hypothetical related to the “life-death binomial”. Conclusion: Thus, it seems necessary to create spaces in the curriculum that yield not only theoretical-practical but also affective support in situations related to terminality. The proposal of a theoretical-practical education based on palliative care amid the learning programs would shape confident attitudes of future health care professionals towards care.

scholarly journals Reflexões sobre a Terminalidade da Vida com Acadêmicos de Medicina

2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Priscelly Cristina Castro Brito ◽  
Izaura Mariana Sobreiro ◽  
Dênia Amélia Novato Castelli von Atzingen ◽  
José Vitor da Silva ◽  
Adriana Rodrigues dos Anjos Mendonça
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Health Care Professionals ◽  
Medical Profession ◽  
Death And Dying ◽  
Actual Process ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Future Health ◽  
Academic Context ◽  
Learning Programs ◽  
Holistic Conception

Abstract: Introduction: Death and dying are daily relevant themes for health care professionals and medical students. Nonetheless, since their first years of graduation, students are contrived to supplant the holistic conception of human beings and life in favor of enhancing the technical aspects of the medical profession. Methods: Therefore, in face of the few opportunities to enquire about these future professionals’ feelings and comprehensions toward life terminality, we pursued their perceptions through the application of a semi-structured questionnaire. Ten students from each year of the medical course at UNIVAS were interviewed, encompassing 60 scholars. Students should be regularly enrolled in the medical course, as well as give their consent, by signing the Consent Term, to participate in the study. The interviews took place at the institution and the material containing students’ responses was fully destroyed afterwards. Their responses were analyzed based on the Discourse of the Collective Subject Method. Results: The idea of terminality being properly the “end of life” was paramount among the years, situation with which a great amount of the scholars (58%) admitted not being prepared to deal with, due to the lack of reflections about death, its psychological aspects and repercussions in the academic context. Interestingly, about 16% of the scholars considered themselves prepared to deal with someone’s death, although they were not prepared to intervene in the actual process. This is reinforced by the fact that students must deal with the real scenario of giving undesirable news without previously being prepared to do so, by means of reflecting upon a hypothetical related to the “life-death binomial”. Conclusion: Thus, it seems necessary to create spaces in the curriculum that yield not only theoretical-practical but also affective support in situations related to terminality. The proposal of a theoretical-practical education based on palliative care amid the learning programs would shape confident attitudes of future health care professionals towards care.

scholarly journals Ideals, passion, and courage

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-7
Author(s):  
Rina Bansal ◽  
Toni Nimeh
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Medical Students ◽  
Health Care Professionals ◽  
Role Models ◽  
Medical Profession ◽  
Social Consequences ◽  
Department Of Ophthalmology ◽  
Mcgill University ◽  
Difficult Times ◽  
The Way

Dear MJM:Helping a fellow human being is likely the most common reason why students enter the medical profession. The immense satisfaction that we experience by helping another person motivates us to devote our lives to a profession that proclaims this as its raison d’être. However, as we enter the clinical years of medical education, it becomes evident that to achieve this in the context of medicine is indeed a challenge.Why is it that we have the ideals, yet still fail to help others the way we hoped to? On June 19th, 2000, the McGill Chapter of Phi Delta Epsilon medical fraternity had the honor of hosting Dr. Miguel N. Burnier Jr., Chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology, McGill University, as the Aaron Brown Lecturer. Dr. Burnier gave a lecture titled “A Story”, through which he communicated an inspiring message, and answered this unasked question. “What makes a good physician is not the knowledge one possesses, but three things: ideals, passion, and courage.”Ideals give direction to our lives. It is the ideal of wanting to help the sick that brought most of us to the doors of the medical profession. Through medicine we hoped to cure disease and thus alleviate suffering. However, the suffering of a patient is more than the symptoms of the disease, it is the consequences of the disease – physical, emotional, psychological, and social consequences. Only if we are able to recognize the distinction between disease and illness and address the full impact of both can we alleviate the suffering.Passion empowers ideals. The practice of medicine in the 21st century is a foreboding challenge. Physicians are inundated with increased numbers of patients and concomitant decreased availability of support staff and health care funding. These factors not only compromise patient care directly but they also affect the physician’s interactions with patients. Physicians, when working in stressful situations, rarely have enough time to spend with their patients. They are unable to provide the holistic care that is needed to alleviate the suffering. Furthermore, these behaviors and stressors are passed down to the residents and the medical students. The passion that we have as young medical students starts to decline as we face the similar challenges of worsening working conditions. The small, yet frequent difficulties we encounter on the way to becoming the “good doctors” we set out to become, make us question the realism of such an entity. Passion empowers us to practice our ideals and the loss of passion allows us to compromise our ideals.It is courage that will carry us through the difficult times that we may encounter as health care professionals. Courage is the capacity to suffer in the name of our ideals. When in situations that challenge our ideals and dampen our passion, it is courage that sustains us. Courage transforms the challenges we experience into opportunities to grow through suffering. As medical students develop courage, they give depth to their passion and ideals, and thus mature to become the role models they once followed. Thus, young medical professionals need to remember their ideals, sustain their passion, and harness their courage to achieve their goal.

scholarly journals Developing primary health care and public health competencies in undergraduate medical students

2017 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 54
Author(s):  
Stephen E Knight ◽  
Andrew J Ross ◽  
Ozayr Mahomed
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Primary Health Care ◽  
Medical Students ◽  
Health Care Professionals ◽  
Health Knowledge ◽  
Medical Curriculum ◽  
Undergraduate Medical Students ◽  
Learning Platform ◽  
Primary Health

Background: The Selective Programme (Selectives) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) is a three-year longitudinal, community-based programme within the undergraduate medical curriculum, which aims to develop primary health care (PHC) and public health competencies in students using the community-oriented primary care (COPC) approach. Aim: The aim of this research was to evaluate the Selectives against the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) ‘core’ graduate competencies. Setting: This study was carried out among medical students concluding Selectives at UKZN in 2015. Methods: A cohort of 183 students concluded Selectives in 2015, and thereafter 70 (38%) completed a routine online evaluation of the programme based on the core graduate competencies. Results: Students reported substantial improvements in PHC clinical knowledge, improved understanding of a population perspective on health, and having gained public health knowledge and skills. Conclusion: Selectives is an effective way to use a decentralised PHC learning platform to enable medical students to address some of the HPCSA graduate competencies required for health care professionals and not necessarily covered by other medical disciplines. (Full text of the research articles are available online at www.medpharm.tandfonline.com/ojfp) S Afr Fam Pract 2017; DOI: 10.1080/20786190.2016.1272229

Assessment of the knowledge and perception of generic medications among pharmacy and medical students in the University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 120-128
Author(s):  
Suleiman I Sharif ◽  
Souad Aldayeh ◽  
Huda Alsomali ◽  
Fatmah Hayat
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Medical Students ◽  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
Health Care Professionals ◽  
Generic Substitution ◽  
Therapeutic Effects ◽  
Generic Medicines ◽  
Cross Sectional Survey ◽  
Future Health ◽  
The University

Background Generic substitution has become a common practice in several countries, primarily because of a major cost-minimizing strategy without compromising healthcare quality. Objective The study was carried out to assess the knowledge and perception of generic medication among final year pharmacy and medical students in the University of Sharjah. Method A cross-sectional survey was designed, pre-validated, and distributed during the period of September to November 2019 in the University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. The study research covered various aspects on knowledge and perception of generic medicines. It was distributed to 180 final year pharmacy and medicine students. Data were analyzed using SPSS, and Chi square test was used to determine the level of significance at p < 0.05. Result A total of 171 of 180 questionnaires were returned back including 87 and 84 surveys from pharmacy and medical students respectively producing a response rate of 95%. The majority of respondents in both collages were females, Arabs, and with parents of non-health care professions. Significantly more pharmacy than medical students agreed that cost-effective therapy and generics were covered in their study courses, generics are bioequivalent to brands and must contain the same amount of active ingredients like brands, that they are confident of their knowledge and more easily recall drugs by their generic names. Again more pharmacy students agreed that pharmacists should have the right to perform substitution but disagreed to the statement that generics takes longer time to produce therapeutic effects than brands. Conclusion Overall, Final-year students of pharmacy had better level of knowledge and perception of generic medicines and their right to perform generic substitution. Medical students seem to have limited knowledge of certain important aspects. Therefore, improvement of educational courses of future health-care professionals should be implemented early to enhance students’ awareness toward generic substitution.

Studying and More: Part-Time Employment as an Educational Challenge?

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-63
Author(s):  
Silke Heuse ◽  
Cathrin Dietze ◽  
Daniel Fodor ◽  
Edgar Voltmer
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Perceived Stress ◽  
Health Care Professionals ◽  
Cross Sectional Study ◽  
Study Data ◽  
Future Health ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Professional Students ◽  
Educational Challenge ◽  
Part Time

Background: Future health-care professionals face stress both during education and in later professional life. Next to educational trainings, many students are forced to assume part-time employment. Objective: Applying the Job Demands-Resources Model to the educational context, we investigate which role part-time employment plays next to health-care professional students’ education-specific demands and resources in the prediction of perceived stress. Method: In this cross-sectional study, data from N = 161 health-care students were analysed, testing moderation models. Results: Education-specific demands were associated with higher and education-specific resources with lower amounts of perceived stress. Part-time employment functioned as moderator, i.e. demands were less associated with stress experiences in students who were employed part-time. Conclusion: Identifying part-time employment as a resource rather than a demand illustrates the need to understand students’ individual influences on stress. Both educators and students will benefit from reflecting these resources to support students’ stress management.

scholarly journals Knowledge, attitudes and behaviours towards vaccination: a survey of university students in Europe

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
A Callegaro ◽  
L Chinenye Ilogu ◽  
O Lugovska ◽  
S Mazzilli ◽  
A Prugnola ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Medical Students ◽  
Health Care Professionals ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Educational Interventions ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
High Level ◽  
Coverage Rates ◽  
The University ◽  
Vaccination Knowledge

Abstract Background Immunisation programs are still facing substantial challenges in achieving target coverage rates. This has been attributed to the growing negative individual vaccination attitudes and behaviours. Most of the current studies assessing vaccination knowledge, attitude and beliefs targets adults. However, young people represent future parents and health care professionals. The objective of this study was to investigate vaccination knowledge attitudes and behaviours among university medical and non-medical students in Europe. Methods We performed a cross-sectional online survey between April and July 2018. The study participants were students attending different faculties at the University of Antwerp, Belgium and the University of Pisa, Italy. We described sample characteristics. The effect of risk factors was tested with univariate and multivariate logistic regressions. Results A total of 2079 participants completed the survey including 873 medical students and 1206 from other faculties. The average of vaccination knowledge, attitudes, and confidence was respectively 5.51 (SD: 1.41), 4.66 (SD: 0.14) and 5.28 (SD: 0.57) on the 6-points scale. Our respondents demonstrated a high level of awareness with respect to their vaccination history. In total, 67.7% (n = 1407) reported to have received at least one vaccine in the previous five years; only 6.0% (n = 35) did not receive any vaccine in the previous 10 years. According to logistic regression analysis Italian students had significantly higher knowledge, attitude and confidence scores than Belgium respondents. Students of medicine scored significantly higher compared to non-medical students. Conclusions In order to reduce the gaps in vaccinations knowledge between non-medical and medical students we should plan educational interventions. In this way the number of future sceptical parents could be decreased. Further studies are required to explain the differences between countries. Key messages Young adults are the parents and the health care professionals of the future, for this reason their vaccination knowledge attitudes and behaviours should be carefully monitored. European non-medical students have lower vaccinations knowledge, attitudes and confidence compared with medical student. In order to fill these gaps, we should plan educational interventions.

Videoconferencing for Continuing Medical Education: From Pilot Project to Sustained Programme

2002 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 131-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Allen ◽  
Joan Sargeant ◽  
Eileen MacDougall ◽  
Michelle Proctor-Simms
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Distance Education ◽  
Medical Education ◽  
Medical Students ◽  
Continuing Medical Education ◽  
Health Care Professionals ◽  
Pilot Project ◽  
Technical Support ◽  
Faculty Support

Videoconferencing has been used to provide distance education for medical students, physicians and other health-care professionals, such as nurses, physiotherapists and pharmacists. The Dalhousie University Office of Continuing Medical Education (CME) has used videoconferencing for CME since a pilot project with four sites in 1995–6. Since that pilot project, videoconferencing activity has steadily increased; in the year 1999–2000, a total of 64 videoconferences were provided for 1059 learners in 37 sites. Videoconferencing has been well accepted by faculty staff and by learners, as it enables them to provide and receive CME without travelling long distances. The key components of the development of the videoconferencing programme include planning, scheduling, faculty support, technical support and evaluation. Evaluation enables the effect of videoconferencing on other CME activities, and costs, to be measured.

scholarly journals Creative Legal Study among Undergraduate Medical Students: Sharing Technique from Mae Fah Luang University

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arnon Jumlongkul
Keyword(s):  
Medical Students ◽  
Medical Curriculum ◽  
Medical Profession ◽  
Competency Assessment ◽  
Undergraduate Medical Students ◽  
End Of Life Decisions ◽  
Legal Study ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Medical Professions ◽  
Health Laws

In Thailand, the topic of medical ethics and laws related to medical professions has been one part of the national competency assessment criteria. The objective of this article was to design legal issues into the medical curriculum and to share experiences of creative legal study. Legal contents were inserted into 10 subjects and taught for year 1 to year 6 medical students. Students were divided into multi-groups or received individual tasks and then, shared their knowledge and idea for solving legal problems. The results showed they could interpret and create novel ideas for legal and ethical reconstruction, including the topic of the principle of laws, criminal laws, civil and commercial laws, public health laws, organ donation/transplantation, end of life decisions, and legal liability for the medical profession. Finally, the creative legal study can be used as a novel approach to support creativity among medical students.

scholarly journals Attitudes toward people with mental illness among medical students

2015 ◽  
Vol 06 (04) ◽  
pp. 001-002
Author(s):  
Vijayalakshmi Poreddi ◽  
Rohini Thimmaiah ◽  
Suresh Bada Math
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Medical Students ◽  
Health Care Professionals ◽  
Mental Health Problems ◽  
Psychiatric Education ◽  
Undergraduate Medical Students ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
People With Mental Illness ◽  
Students Attitudes ◽  
Self Reporting Questionnaire

ABSTRACT Background: Globally, people with mental illness frequently encounter stigma, prejudice, and discrimination by public and health care professionals. Research related to medical students’f attitudes toward people with mental illness is limited from India. Aim: The aim was to assess and compare the attitudes toward people with mental illness among medical students’. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study design was carried out among medical students, who were exposed (n = 115) and not exposed (n = 61) to psychiatry training using self-reporting questionnaire. Results: Our findings showed improvement in students’ attitudes after exposure to psychiatry in benevolent (t = 2.510, P < 0.013) and stigmatization (t = 2.656, P < 0.009) domains. Further, gender, residence, and contact with mental illness were the factors that found to be influencing students’ attitudes toward mental illness. Conclusion: The findings of the present study suggest that psychiatric education proved to be effective in changing the attitudes of medical students toward mental illness to a certain extent. However, there is an urgent need to review the current curriculum to prepare undergraduate medical students to provide holistic care to the people with mental health problems.

scholarly journals Inhaled medication for asthma management: evaluation of how asthma patients, medical students, and doctors use the different devices

2003 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janaína Barbosa Muniz ◽  
Carlos Roberto Padovani ◽  
Irma Godoy
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Medical Students ◽  
Health Care Professionals ◽  
Airflow Obstruction ◽  
Asthma Management ◽  
Outpatient Service ◽  
Inhalation Therapy ◽  
Metered Dose ◽  
Asthma Patients ◽  
Inhaled Medication

Asthma results from a combination of three essential features: airflow obstruction, hyperresponsiveness of airways to endogenous or exogenous stimuli and inflammation. Inadequacy of the techniques to use different inhalation devices is one of the causes of therapeutic failure. The main purpose of this study was to evaluate how 20 medical students, 36 resident physicians of Internal Medicine/Pediatrics, and 40 asthma patients used three devices for inhalation therapy containing placebo. All patients were followed at the Pulmonary Outpatient Service of Botucatu Medical School and had been using inhaled medication for at least six months. The following devices were evaluated: metered dose inhalers (MDI), dry powder inhalers (DPI), and MDI attached to a spacer device. A single observer applied a protocol containing the main steps necessary to obtain a good inhaler technique to follow and grade the use of different devices. Health care professionals tested all three devices and patients tested only the device being used on their management. MDI was the device best known by doctors and patients. MDI use was associated with errors related to the coordination between inspiration and device activation. Failure to exhale completely before inhalation of the powder was the most frequent error observed with DPI use. In summary, patients did not receive precise instruction on how to use inhaled medication and health care professionals were not well prepared to adequately teach their patients.

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