Psychological effects of war: A role play

The practice of psychiatry, perhaps more than any other specialty, is largely affected by culture. The medical student psychiatry curriculum often fails to incorporate this reality. In the Middle East currently, because of the endemic violence and warfare, the topic of the Psychological Effects of War should be an integral part of the psychiatry curriculum. Unfortunately, this topic is often neglected or poorly addressed in most psychiatric textbooks or curricula. A group of three students at WCM-Q in Doha took matter in their own hands to fill this gap. They used role play to illustrate three different conditions that are associated with the psychological effects of war in three different scenarios: anxiety, depression and PTSD. They made a video of the scenes with other fellow students participating in the discussion. This innovative approach is a good example of peer-to-peer education to cover an important topic that is frequently missing in standard curricula.

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Mental health during the Syrian crisis: How Syrians are dealing with the psychological effects

International Review of the Red Cross ◽

10.1017/s1816383119000080 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 99 (906) ◽

pp. 927-935 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Mazen Hedar

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Health Care ◽

Mental Health Care ◽

Psychological Effects ◽

Significant Progress ◽

Physical Damage ◽

Syrian Crisis ◽

Health Situation ◽

Effects Of War ◽

Made In

AbstractLooking at the physical damage caused by the Syrian war, one can begin to imagine the scale of the psychological toll that eight years of crisis have taken on the Syrian people. In a country where mental health was still considered an emerging field before the war, Syrians are working to address and manage the mental health and psychological effects of war. Despite this disastrous situation, there appears to have been significant progress in the field of mental health during the crisis. This article explores the mental health situation in Syria prior to 2011, the effects of the crisis on Syrians, and how these have been managed in recent years. It concludes by citing some examples of progress that have been made in mental health care in Syria and discussing some of the challenges that remain to be addressed.

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Reflective Writing about Near-Peer Blogs: A Novel Method for Introducing the Medical Humanities in Premedical Education

Journal of Medical Humanities ◽

10.1007/s10912-021-09693-3 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Rachel Conrad Bracken ◽

Ajay Major ◽

Aleena Paul ◽

Kirsten Ostherr

Keyword(s):

Medical Student ◽

Qualitative Analysis ◽

Narrative Analysis ◽

Academic Medicine ◽

Medical Humanities ◽

Peer Learning ◽

Peer To Peer ◽

Reflective Writing ◽

Premedical Students ◽

Blog Posts

AbstractNarrative analysis, creative writing, and interactive reflective writing have been identified as valuable for professional identity formation and resilience among medical and premedical students alike. This study proposes that medical student blogs are novel pedagogical tools for fostering peer-to-peer learning in academic medicine and are currently underutilized as a near-peer resource for premedical students to learn about the medical profession. To evaluate the pedagogical utility of medical student blogs for introducing core themes in the medical humanities, the authors conducted qualitative analysis of one hundred seventy-six reflective essays by baccalaureate premedical students written in response to medical student-authored narrative blog posts. Using an iterative thematic approach, the authors identified common patterns in the reflective essays, distilled major themes, coded the essays, and conducted narrative analysis through close reading. Qualitative analysis identified three core themes (empathic conflict, bias in healthcare, and the humanity of medicine) and one overarching theme (near-peer affinities). The premedical students’ essays demonstrated significant self-reflection in response to near-peer works, discussed their perceptions of medical professionalism, and expressed concerns about their future progress through the medical education system. The essays consistently attributed the impact of the medical student narratives to the authors’ status as near-peers. The authors conclude that reading and engaging in reflective writing about near-peer blog posts encourages premedical students to develop an understanding of core concepts in the medical humanities and promotes their reflection on the profession of medicine. Thus, incorporating online blogs written by medical trainees as narrative works in medical humanities classrooms is a novel pedagogical method for fostering peer-to-peer learning in academic medicine.

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Role Play Activities: An Innovative Approach to Teaching Speaking Skills in an ESL Classroom

LSP International Journal ◽

10.11113/lspi.v7.16310 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 7 (2) ◽

pp. 19-36

Author(s):

Nurhamimi Togimin ◽

Haliza Jaafar

Keyword(s):

Undergraduate Students ◽

Role Play ◽

Real Life ◽

Target Language ◽

Innovative Approach ◽

Positive Effects ◽

Real Life Situation ◽

English Speaking ◽

Esl Classroom ◽

Speaking Skills

Encouraging students to speak during classroom activities is an effective strategy to improve their acquisition of the target language. Activities related to real life situation such as role play, debate and simulation provide substantial rehearsal and practice and they allow students to not just learn phrases, but also learn how to communicate in various circumstances. Recent studies have revealed that students who are exposed to learning using role play activities improve significantly in speaking competency. Hence, the aim of this study is to investigate how role play activities in an ESL classroom can be an innovative approach in improving students’ speaking skill. A total of nine undergraduate students from the Faculty of Computing in a public university in the Southern region of Malaysia were involved in this study. The main purpose for choosing the students as participants of the study was due to their low English proficiency based on their MUET results. The instruments used in this study were observation checklist and questionnaire. All the findings were tabulated and analysed qualitatively (observation checklist) as well as quantitatively (questionnaire). From the analysis carried out, it was evident that the students made positive improvement particularly in fluency, comprehension, context, and interactive communication. Besides that, the students felt that role play activities had brought positive effects on their English-speaking skills as obtained from the results of the questionnaire. Thus, it can be deduced that role play activities do have positive effects on students’ English-speaking skills.

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