METHODS: A cross-sectional survey was conducted among clinical-year medical students from a Malaysian private medical college using a self-administered questionnaire.
RESULTS: There were 330 participants with a female preponderance and a mean age of 22.0 ± 1.1 years. The largest proportion of respondents were from Year 3. The vast majority were ethnically Malay (91.8%) and followed Islam (92.4%). Overall, 60.9% of participants had a positive attitude towards vasectomy and 76.0% showed good acceptance. Gender, academic year, ethnicity and religion variables were not associated with attitudes and acceptance (p > 0.05). A significantly higher proportion of male respondents thought that vasectomy was religiously forbidden and would give a bad impression. A significantly higher proportion of Year 5 students agreed to the statement 'I would recommend vasectomy to relatives, friends and people close to me' compared to Year 3 and 4 students.
CONCLUSION: Students' perception of vasectomy as a contraceptive method was encouraging. Our results suggest that their knowledge improved as medical training progressed, and attitudes evolved for the better irrespective of their traditional, cultural and religious beliefs - highlighting the importance of providing students with evidence-based learning about male sterilisation, which is more cost-effective and is associated with lower morbidity than female sterilisation. A qualitative study involving students from different ethnicities and religions would provide a better understanding of this subject.
Methods: A comparative cross-sectional study was conducted on the interviewed and non-interviewed cohorts. Their examination marks were obtained from the academic office, psychological health was measured by DASS-21, personality traits were measured by USMaP-15, and emotional intelligence was measured by USMEQ-17.
Results: The interviewed cohort performed significantly better in the clinical examination than the non-interviewed cohort. Conversely, the non-interviewed cohort performed significantly better in the theoretical examination. Depression, anxiety, and stress level between the two cohorts showed no difference. The interviewed cohort demonstrated more desirable personality traits, higher emotional intelligence, and social competence than the non-interviewed cohort.
Discussion: This study provides evidence to support the claim that the interview-based admission process has favourable outcomes on clinical performance, emotional intelligence, and personality traits. Several insights gained as a result of this study are discussed.
Methods: Various themes are used to develop integrated curriculum which are basic medical science, simulation skills, clinical science, personality development, research, entrepreneurship and pre specialization. Each theme is subdivided, termed a module and its contents primarily focus on particular aspect.
Results: Knowledge, skill and attitude, embodied in themes or modules, are planted in specific way that they have horizontal as well as vertical integration. There is no boundary of various traditional disciplines in template of five years curriculum. For example, diagnosis is a theme which carries contents from medicine, surgery, orthopedics etc.
Conclusion: The blueprint introduced in this paper would help medical educators to draft integrated medical curricula for those institutions which intend to switch their medical programs from traditional to integrated one.
METHODS: A 20-item questionnaire was distributed online to medical professors of a Saudi, Malaysian and a Pakistani medical school. The participants were instructed to select their responses on a 5-point Likert's scale and the collected data was analyzed for quantitative and qualitative results.
RESULTS: Of 161, 110 responded; response rate of 68.3%. About 35% professors spent 1-4 hours and 2% spent 19-25 hours per week for research. As many as 7% did not publish a single article and 29% had published 10 or more articles after attaining professor rank. During the last two years, 44% professors had published 5 or more research articles. Majority pointed out a lack of research support and funds, administrative burden and difficulty in data collection as the main obstacles to their research.
CONCLUSIONS: This research has identified time constraints and insufficient support for research as key barriers to medical professors' research productivity. Financial and technical support and lesser administrative work load are some suggested remedies to foster the professors' research output.
Method: A cross-sectional study was carried out on a sample of medical students in their final year at Universiti Sains Malaysia. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed using AMOS 22 to assess construct validity. Reliability analysis was performed using SPSS 22 to assess internal consistency.
Results: A total of 159 final year medical students participated. CFA showed that the original four-factor model with 15 items achieved acceptable values for the goodness of fit indices, suggesting a good model fit (X2 = 198.295, ChiSq/df = 2.418, RMSEA = 0.095, GFI = 0.867, CFI = 0.953, NFI = 0.923, TLI = 0.940). The Cronbach's alpha values of the mentoring relationship structure, engagement, and competency support domains were 0.96, 0.90 and 0.88, respectively. For autonomy support, the Cronbach's alpha value was 0.62.
Conclusion: MBS demonstrates a satisfactory level of construct validity and a high level of internal consistency in measuring supportive mentor behaviours in a medical school setting. This result suggests that MBS can be used as a mentorship evaluation tool for feedback in the context of a Malaysian medical school.
Methods: A qualitative method was employed to explore the feedback-seeking behaviour of undergraduate medical students in the Faculty of Medicine at Universitas Lampung. Focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted with four student groups and each group consisted of 7-10 students from the years 2012, 2013 and 2014. Data triangulation was carried out through FGDs with teaching staff, and an interview with the Head of the Medical Education Unit.
Results: Study findings indicated that the motivation of students to seek feedback was underlain by the desire to obtain useful information and to control the impressions of others. Students will tend to seek feedback from someone to whom they have either a close relationship or whose credibility they value. The most common obstacle for students to seek feedback is the reluctance and fearfulness of receiving negative comments.
Conclusions: Through the identification of factors promoting and inhibiting feedback-seeking behaviour, medical education institutions are enabled to implement the appropriate and necessary measures to create a supportive feedback atmosphere in the learning process.
METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study conducted in 2017 which recruited medical students of UPNM. The Empathy Quotient, a self-reported questionnaire, was utilized for data collection. The total empathy score of the questionnaire is 80.
RESULTS: Majority of the respondents were male (60.9%), year-V students (26.6%), Malay (70.5%), and cadet officer (69.6%). The overall mean score achieved by the respondents was 36.76 ± 9.18, and 74.4% of the respondents scored more than 30. The empathy scores of the students were significantly affected by the gender (t = 2.371; df = 205; P < 0.05), year of study (F = 2.553; df = 4/202; P < 0.05), and examination grades (F = 3.488; df = 2/204; P < 0.05). The findings showed that female students are more empathetic than their male counterparts. Further, the post hoc Tukey test analysis revealed that Year-V students are more empathetic than their junior counterparts and students who got highest grade are more empathetic.
CONCLUSIONS: To improve the empathy level of the UPNM medical students, appropriate educational strategies and interventions should be designed and implemented in the curriculum to inculcate, maintain, and enhance empathy.