scholarly journals Fostering research skills in undergraduate medical students through Mentored Student Projects: Example from an Indian medical school

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 294-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
V Devi ◽  
R R Abraham ◽  
A Adiga ◽  
K Ramnarayan ◽  
A Kamath

Background Healthcare decision-making is largely reliant on evidence–based medicine; building skills in scientific reasoning and thinking among medical students becomes an important part of medical education. Medical students in India have no formal path to becoming physicians, scientists or academicians. Objectives This study examines students’ perceptions regarding research skills improvement after participating in the Mentored Student Project programme at Melaka Manipal Medical College, Manipal Campus, India. Additionally, this paper describes the initiatives taken for the continual improvement of the Mentored Student Project programme based on faculty and student perspectives. Methods At Melaka Manipal Medical College, Mentored Student Project was implemented in the curriculum during second year of Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery programme with the intention of developing research skills essential to the career development of medical students. The study design was cross-sectional. To inculcate the spirit of team work students were grouped (n=3 to 5) and each group was asked to select a research project. The students’ research projects were guided by their mentors.  A questionnaire (Likert’s five point scale) on students’ perceptions regarding improvement in research skills after undertaking projects and guidance received from the mentor was administered to medical students after they had completed their Mentored Student Project . The responses of students were summarised using percentages. The median grade with inter-quartile range was reported for each item in the questionnaire. The median grade for all the items related to perceptions regarding improvement in research skills was 4 which reflected that the majority of the students felt that Mentored Student Project had improved their research skills. The problems encountered by the students during Mentored Student Project were related to time management for the Mentored Student Project and mentors. Results This study shows that students acknowledged that their research skills were improved after participating in the Mentored Student Project programme. Conclusions The Mentored Student Project programme was successful in fostering positive attitudes among medical students towards scientific research. The present study also provides scope for further improvement of the Mentored Student Project programme based on students’ and faculty perspectives.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/kumj.v8i3.6215 Kathmandu Univ Med J 2010;8(3):294-8

Background: Information technology (IT) is a new way of teaching and learning. One of the promising media of information technology is e-Learning, which is used to enhance knowledge and skills among users. A student gains better and deep knowledge through a useful tool. This survey aimed to determine practices among medical students for e-Learning. Methods: This cross-sectional survey was conducted on 184 students amongst the 500 students currently enrolled in medical college. Data was collected using questionnaires and were analyzed through SPSS version 22. Chi-square was used for qualitative values. Results: Majority 90.80% (n=167) students were aware of e-Learning and were statistically high in first year students (p-value: 0.018). The student did not show statistically significant results for content learned through e-Learning with a p-value of 0.063. Different resources were used for e-Learning in which videos had the highest percentage (87.60%) and audios were used as the least resource for e-Learning (29.20%). Daily, 56% of the students use e-Learning for 1 hour or less and only 3% of the students used it for more than 4 hours. Conclusion: Majority of undergraduate medical students were aware of the use of e-Learning and most of them preferred e-Learning for their course work and studies showing a significant increase in understanding and use, compared to studies conducted earlier. Participants found e-Learning useful and effective tool in increasing knowledge and understanding of their subject. Keywords: e-Learning; Practices; Students.


2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-30
Author(s):  
Aparna Rizyal ◽  
JS Sunrait ◽  
A Mishal

 Refractive error is a defect in the optical system of the eye which prevents light from being brought to a single point focus on the retina, thus reducing normal vision. This optical defect is the second most common cause of visual impairment globally as well in Nepal. At present, there are 285 million visually impaired people in the world. An estimated 4 out of 5 visual impairment (80%) can be prevented or cured, uncorrected refractive errors are the leading cause (42%) followed by cataract (33%). A descriptive cross sectional study was conducted to determine the proportion of undergraduate medical students with refractive errors in Nepal Medical College, and to identify factors associated with it. A total of 210 medical students volunteered for this study, with 100 males (47.6%) and 110 females (52.4%). The age of these students were between 18 to 26 years, with an average of 20.5 years. The proportion of medical students with refractive error was slightly more than half (51.4%), with simple myopia being the leading type (42.9%), followed by astigmatism (7.1%) and simple hypermetropia (1.4%). Parental history of refractive error was observed to be significantly associated with that of the medical students. There was also a significant association between refractive error and the daily use of mobile phones and laptops. However, years spent in medical education were not observed to be significant.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammed Alser ◽  
Bettina Böttcher ◽  
Maha Alfaqawi ◽  
Abdallah Jlambo ◽  
Walaa Abuzubaida ◽  
...  

Abstract Background In undergraduate medical education, patient safety concepts and understanding of medical errors are under-represented. This problem is more evident in low-income settings. The aim of this study was to explore undergraduate medical students’ attitudes towards patient safety in the low-income setting of the Gaza Strip. Methods A cross-sectional, descriptive study included medical students of the two medical schools in the Gaza Strip with 338 medical students completing the Attitudes to Patient Safety Questionnaire-IV (APSQ-IV), which examines patient attitudes in 29 items over 10 domains. Results are represented as means ± standard deviations for each item and domain as well as percentage of positive responses to specific items. Results Medical students reported slightly positive patient safety attitudes (4.7 ± 0.5 of 7) with the most positive attitudes in the domains of situational awareness, importance of patient safety in the curriculum, error inevitability and team functioning. While no negative attitudes were reported, neutral attitudes were found in the domains of professional incompetence as a cause of error and error reporting confidence. Study year and gender had no significant association with patient safety attitudes, except for disclosure responsibility, where male students displayed significantly more positive attitudes. The study university was significantly associated with three of the 10 examined domains, all of which involved understanding of medical errors, for which students of University 2 (who had undergone limited patient safety training) held significantly more positive attitudes, compared with students of University 1 (who did not have structured patient safety training). Conclusion Medical students’ patient safety attitudes were very similar among students from both universities, except for understanding of medical error, for which students, who had received structured training in this topic, displayed significantly more positive attitudes. This underlines the power of the ‘hidden curriculum’, where students adjust to prevalent cultures in local hospitals, while they do their clinical training. Furthermore, it highlights the need for a systematic inclusion of patient safety content in local undergraduate curricula.


2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-108
Author(s):  
Pratibha Manandhar ◽  
Naresh Manandhar ◽  
Sunil Kumar Joshi

Background and Objectives: Due to Covid-19 lockdown period undergraduate medical institutions across the country are moving towards e-learning for continuity of education. The purpose of this study is to determine the perceptions of students towards e-learning and to analyze medical students’ perception on e-learning vs. conventional learning. Materials and Method: This was a descriptive cross sectional study conducted by distributing an online semi-structured questionnaire consisting Likert scale to undergraduate medical students of Kathmandu Medical College. Data assembled from the survey were analyzed and Statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) 24 version software was used for data analysis. Result: A total of 273 students were enrolled in this study. Most of the students, 83.9% (229) had the perception that conventional teaching method was the best method for learning as compared to e-learning method 16.1% (44). The students mentioned that conventional method of learning is more effective to increase knowledge than e -learning (M= 3.87, M= 2.80) which was statistically significant (p=0.000). Conclusion: E-learning was the only option for students to study during lockdown period. But students preferred conventional method of learning as compared to e-learning. It might be due to some disadvantages of e-learning, eg. Technical difficulties, lack of interaction with teacher  and patients, etc. So, these measures have to be addressed for improving e-learning for betterment of teaching-learning activity during these types of circumstances in future.


Author(s):  
Manjula R. ◽  
Anjani Kumar Srivastava ◽  
Ashok S. Dorle

Background: Evidence based practice (EBP) is based on the integration of the best research evidence with clinical expertise to facilitate clinical decision making. Those patients who receive evidence-based therapies have better outcomes than those who do not.Evidence-based medicine is becoming a specialty in its own right, and it's an area that medical students should pay close attention to when determining their path. The objective of the study was to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice regarding evidence based practice among the undergraduate and postgraduate students of a medical college in North Karnataka.Methods: After obtaining ethical clearance from institutional ethical committee, this cross-sectional study was conducted in a Medical College in North Karnataka from November 2016–January 2017. All the interns and postgraduates studying in the College were included in the study. After obtaining informed consent, data was collected through pre-designed semi-structured questionnaire. Data was compiled and tabulated by using MS Excel and was analyzed.Results: Overall, majority of the participants hold positive attitudes toward EBP but lack sufficient knowledge and skills for implementation. The main barriers to implement EBP are insufficient time to read scientific research articles and the cost to its access.Conclusions: More focus should be given to EBP from the medical school itself, either through continuing medical education or various workshops, it can even be included in the curriculum so that all the undergraduate medical students can be sensitized to it from a very initial stage.


2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 643-647
Author(s):  
Shumaila Irum ◽  
Muhammad Zafar Iqbal ◽  
Fatima Naumeri

The primary success of educational environment heavily depends upon benefits to learners and this further facilitates the learning processing. The most commonly used tool, to measure it, is Dundee Ready Educational Environment Measure (DREEM). Objective: This study was designed to evaluate the perceptions of medical students in pre-clinical years about educational environment in a public sector medical college of Pakistan and to compare the DREEM scores with previous published scores. Material and Methods: The DREEM questionnaire was conducted on undergraduate medical students (n=300) of Sheikh Zayed Medical College, Rahim Yar Khan, during the month of June 2015. Results: Two eighty-six (n=286) of the 300 students (95.33%) completed the questionnaire. Analysisof these subjected indicated a total mean score of 113.68. Mean for students’ perception of learning was 26.65±10.235, mean for students’ perceptions of teachers was 26.63±10.177. On the other hands, the mean scores for students’ academic self-perception, students’ perception of the atmosphere, and students’ social self-perception were 17.17±6.73, 26.89±10.89, and 16.34±6.70, respectively. Conclusion: Although DREEM scores showed improvement from previously published scores of same medical college, it also highlighted the areas needing further improvement.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document