Advances in Health Professions Education(PMDC Recognized)

Promoting research activities in simulation centers to Improve patient safety

2017-02-26T07:42:28+00:00

There are many issues around patient safety that need to be addressed in the Pakistani healthcare system. Most of these issues arise because the healthcare professionals are not properly trained in the technical and non-technical skills. The technical skills include examining a patient, measuring blood pressure, listening to the heart sounds, passing the intravenous (IV) cannula line, passing urinary catheter, delivering a baby, etc. The non-technical or soft skills include communication skills, taking an informed consent for surgery or invasive procedure, breaking a bad news, and professionalism of healthcare professionals. The development of these skills is a neglected area in the medical education system of Pakistan. Moreover, there are limited facilities to develop these skills in our healthcare professionals. These skills can be improved for patient safety through simulation- based training, thus producing safe doctors, and other healthcare professionals.

Why doctors find learning biostatistics and epidemiology difficult: lessons learnt from CPSP workshop using CIPP model

2017-02-26T07:42:28+00:00

BACKGROUND: Acknowledging the pivotal role of biostatistics in practice of Evidence-Based Medicine, Universities and medical schools worldwide have incorporated courses on medical statistics in their curricula. Pakistani medical students lack an adequate background of mathematics and consider statistics difficult to learn. College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan (CPSP) has introduced a mandatory workshop on Biostatics and Epidemiology for supervisors and trainees.

AIM: This study attempts to evaluate the perceptions of supervisors and trainees regarding the effectiveness of CPSP workshop.

METHODS: A quantitative cross sectional descriptive study was conducted on a cohort of 56 participants (26 supervisors and 30 trainees) from Shaikh Zayed Hospital, Lahore using Stufflebeamâ€™s CIPP Model employing a 20 item 5-point Likert Scale questionnaire. Domains analyzed were: Context, Input, Process and Product.

RESULTS: Seventy five percent acknowledged the importance of statistics, 78% preferred clinical subjects over statistics and 85% suggested introducing the subject in pre-clinical years. Eighty five percent believed that the best time to introduce statistics was pre-clinical years. Fifty seven percent of the participants believed that learning statistics and epidemiology required a very strong background of mathematics, 66% found the workshop relevant to their needs but library resources were inadequate. Instructorsâ€™ knowledge and conduct was rated good to excellent. Teaching sessions were rated low being focused on calculations, not relevant to real health issues, boring and less time allocation. Forty five percent found assessment accurate, 56% gained skills in reading scientific papers, 52% could better interpret data after attending the workshop while 44% gained skills to design and analyze research. Satisfied clients were 55%, 61%, 46% and 55% in Context, Input, Process and Product domains respectively. Overall 54% of the participants were satisfied with the workshop with faculty members reporting a more positive and satisfied attitude than trainees.

CONCLUSION: Participants acknowledged the importance of biostatistics but considered the subject a formidable exercise. CPSP workshop was rated a good effort by only half of the participants. Reservations expressed were mainly about the methodology employed. It is proposed that the subject should be an examinable subject introduced in pre-medical years employing a constructivist approach. CPSP should incorporate mandatory evaluation in theory or OSCE examinations in Part II FCPS examinations in all disciplines.

EVALUATION OF ETHICAL SENSITIVITY OF FRESHLY GRADUATED DENTAL SURGEONS

2017-02-26T07:42:29+00:00

Introduction: The aim of teaching ethics to the doctors is to make them recognize the humanistic and ethical aspects of medical careers. There is a difference between the culture of profession and business. Care and concern of oral health for all the people are the values in the culture of dentistry whereas building a successful and profitable enterprise are the values of business culture.Â So ethics teaching and assessment should be given due importance. Â In this respect, ethical sensitivity is considered to be an emerging concept with potential utility in research and practice.

Methods: All freshly graduated dental surgeons doing house job at Sardar Begum Dental College were formally invited to the Prosthodontics Department. After an informed consent taken related to their willingness for participation, data collection from each participant was obtained through a standardized questionnaire containing Vignettes/ scenarios.Â

Results: Mean age of the participants was 23.2 with age range 4. About 53% freshly graduated dental surgeons in the study were found to be ethically sensitive whereas, 47% were partially sensitive to ethics. Within the limitations of the study relation between ethical sensitivity of freshly graduated dental surgeons and gender, religion, living status and class attendance of the participants was insignificant.

Conclusion: Due to an obvious association between ethics and patient care, it is important to assess ethical sensitivity of the students before they begin their clinical experiences.

Key Words: Â

Ethical sensitivity score, ethics, vignettes, scenarios, clinical scenarios, oral health.

Faculty perceptions about Continuing Medical Education activities

2017-02-26T07:42:29+00:00

BACKGROUND: Many countries across the globe have made major changes in their systems to manage opportunities for professional development of the medical graduates. PMDC has also linked the license to practice with documented proof of CPD/ CME activities. After this decision different recognized institutes are arranging regular CME activities.

AIM: This study was conducted to find the perception of faculty members about the CME activities.

METHODS: This descriptive, cross sectional study was conducted during the month of August-September 2015 at Azra Naheed Medical College Lahore. A structured, pretested, questionnaire was used for data collection. The data were analysed using SPSS v.16.

RESULTS: Out of 37 total participants in this study. 19 (51.4 %) were males and 18 (48.6 %) were females. The age ranges between 26 to 71 with a mean of 44 years. The reason for attending CME inquired and found that PMDC requirement is the reason for 22 (59.5 %), personal development for 8 (21.6 %) and both of the above mentioned reasons accounted for 7 (18.9 %) of the respondents. 21 (56.8 %) respondents reported that mandatory CME is a beneficial decision of PMDC, whereas 15 (40.5 %) reported that it is not a beneficial decision

CONCLUSION: Majority of the faculty members attend CME activities due to the mandatory requirement of PMDC. Although the majority perceive that mandatory CME is a beneficial decision but a reasonable number of faculty especially junior faculty members do not consider it as a beneficial decision.

Correlation of Emotional Intelligence with Academic Achievement in undergraduate medical students

2017-02-26T07:42:30+00:00

BACKGROUND: Emotional intelligence is one of the important characteristics that can affect the academic achievement of medical students.

AIM: This study is aimed at investigating the relationship between studentsâ€™ emotional intelligence and their academic achievement.

METHODS: It was a cross-sectional correlational study. Sample of the study comprised 90 students of 2nd year MBBS class of Bannu Medical College, Bannu, available at the time of data collection. Short version of Workgroup Emotional Intelligence Profile (WEIP-S) was used as a research tool of the study. Mean, SD and Pearson Coefficient were used as statistical tests.

RESULTS: The correlation between studentsâ€™ awareness of own emotions and their academic achievement was r=-.03 (p value .71). The correlation between studentsâ€™ management of own emotions and studentsâ€™ academic achievement was r=.34 (p value .00). The coefficient of correlation between studentsâ€™ awareness of other emotions and their academic achievement was r=.24 (p value .02). The coefficient of correlation between studentsâ€™ management of other emotions and their academic achievement r=.21 (p value .04). The coefficient of correlation between students overall emotional intelligence and their academic achievement r=.26 (p value .01).

CONCLUSION: The study showed that there exists a significant correlation between studentsâ€™ overall emotional intelligence and academic achievement. It was recommended that parents and teacher may also concentrate on the nourishment of emotional intelligence along with the cognitive development.

Attitude of nursing students towards e- learning

2017-02-26T07:42:30+00:00

BACKGROUND: Nursing education has been using computers and internet related technology for research purposes since long but now, with advent of simulations, technology has become an essential element of basic professional training and continued professional development. Student management systems helps in handling inquiries, admissions and enrolling new students, managing studentsâ€™ assessments, maintaining records of attendance and handling the award of credit points or exit certificates. However, adopting a system without prior preparation can bring out frustrations. The dissatisfaction may be caused due to lack of awareness of the benefits, stress of using technology or budget issues for proper implementation. Such issues become more pronounced for developing countries having limitation of economical and technical expertise as compared to developed countries.

AIM: The aim of this study is to determine the attitude of nursing students towards e-learning.

METHODS: A quantitative, cross sectional study was carried out. One hundred and twenty nursing students participated in study. After informed consent, a closed ended, pre-validated, questionnaire with 5 point likert scale was filled and returned by all the participants. The data was analyzed by SPSS 20.

RESULTS: Of the total 120 students, 86% were females. The mean scores for perceived usefulness, intention to adopt, ease of learning and pressure to use e learning were 3.68,3.74,3.64 and 3.69 which are significantly more than the mean scores for technical support and e learning stressor i.e. 3.25, 3.05.

CONCLUSION: Our study shows that the nursing students are ready to adopt e-learning and recognize its uses in education but they consider the difficulties with technical support and stress of using technology as a hindrance.

Perceptions of medical teachers about integrated curriculum

2017-02-26T07:42:31+00:00

BACKGROUND: There is a significant progress in medical education in recent years but still there is room for reforms and innovations. Development of curriculum is a dynamic process which is ongoing since centuries. With advances in medical sciences, changes in patterns of diseases, changing socio-economic realities, periodic updating of a curriculum is necessary. Medical curriculum has gone through many reforms and for implementation of a new curricular reform detailed understanding of implementerâ€™s perceptions is mandatory.

AIM: The study is aimed to determine the perceptions of medical teachers about curricular reforms.

METHODS: Search was done utilizing the PubMed and ERIC databases and grey search utilizing search engine Google and Google scholar, following the Haig and Dozier approach. Optimal search with combine natural language and controlled vocabulary approaches was used.

RESULTS: After initial selection of 237 articles relevant to the research question there abstracts were studied, inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied and it was found that there are many articles which are nonspecific (not having proper study designs, conference proceedings) and 10 were duplicate. Three themes were identified after search: Theme 1: Evolution of integrated curriculum/ Historical Perspective, Theme 2: Implementation of the integrated curriculum and Theme 3: Failed reforms to implement the integrated curriculum

CONCLUSION: It is concluded that integrated curriculum in an organ-system-based model is a curricular reform that is well accepted by teachers around the world. It helped reducing the excessive information and repetition of content

The Role of Theory in Medical Education Practice

2017-02-26T07:42:31+00:00

Educational practice should have a firm grounding in theory. This essay describes the role of learning theories in defining our educational practices. It discusses promotion of interaction and reflection among students as educational principles for deep learning. The importance and relevance of these principles in the context of medical and dental education is highlighted along with practical strategies to include them in practice.

The use of concept mapping and propositions to promote deep learning

2017-02-26T07:42:31+00:00

Studies have shown that the use of concept making and suitable schemata have helped in promoting deep learning. The current schemata adopted in class room at undergraduate and postgraduate level has helped in promoting studentsâ€™ approach towards deep learning to digest the knowledge, which has been transformed for better outcome. Experiential sharing is communicated here that the uses of suitable metaphorical references have helped them making strategic and deep learning taking verbal feedback from students.

Teaching professional ethics to undergraduate medical students.

2017-02-26T07:42:31+00:00

Professional ethics is considered a very important component of medical education in recent times. It is about the moral conduct of medical personnel in a professional context. Teaching this subject in an undergraduate medical program is of prime importance as ethical issues are embedded in everyday professional life. It is thus important not only to provide students with a sound knowledge base of legal, moral and social aspects of this subject, but also to equip them with the much needed ethical reasoning and interactional skills right from the start of their professional life. A variety of teaching- learning strategies as well as assessment strategies have been tried in this regard, given the range of learning issues and objectives they are designed to cover. All have their own set of advantages and disadvantages. We describe here two such teaching- learning activities and their preferred assessment strategies most suited for the purpose mentioned herein.