Journal of Advances in Medical Education & Professionalism
Volume:10 Issue: 2, Apr 2022

Hidden curriculum is important in medical education and has numerous, long-lasting effects on medical residency. The present scoping review seeks to investigate, identify, and plot the main concepts relating to hidden curriculum and its dimensions, domains, impacts and factors in medical residency courses based on the main references and evidence.

Scoping review methodology was used to guide a search of electronic databases for relevant papers. Of the 394 abstracts initially identified, after screening of both abstracts and full-text papers, 43 studies were selected for inclusion in this review. Following abstraction of key information from each study, a content analysis was undertaken.

Eleven themes were identified from the content analysis: 1) Organizational Issues (13.77%), 2) Socio-cultural Issues (10.5%), 3) Professional Issues (13.41%), 4) CommunicationalFactors (8.7%), 5) Educational Issues (22.83%), 6) Resident Personal Characteristics (21.01%), and 7) Resident Educational Characteristics (9.78%). Among the extracted effective hidden curriculum factors, the role modeling had the highest frequency and was emphasized in the studies.

Although this study explained and identified the components, elements and also the preparation of the initial format of the hidden curriculum framework of the medical residency program, its results can reduce the negative effects of the hidden curriculum on it. More extensive and in-depth studies with different qualitative methods or mixed methods related to the hidden curriculum in different contexts and disciplines of medical residency are recommended to define characteristics of a constructive hidden curriculum of medical residency programs.

Since the COVID-19, changes have occurred for the Moroccan medical students, which represent a vulnerable population. Coping with this situation could be difficult. Our objective was to estimate and understand the psychosocial barriers to the medical students’ well-being at the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy of Marrakesh (FMPM) by evaluating their coping strategies, difficulties and needs.

We conducted a mixed method study among pregraduate medical students. For the quantitative part, we did a cross-sectional study using an online four-part self-administeredquestionnaire. We compared Likert scales of perceived wellbeing before and one year after the lockdown. The scales ranged from 0 (very low state of well-being) to 10 (complete state ofwell-being). Coping strategies were assessed by the Brief-COPE questionnaire. The qualitative perspective was a case-study with semi-structured interviews using an interview guide based onthe literature review. Finally, a one-phase triangulation analysis, underlined by a convergence model, was done.

We had 355 participants for the quantitative part (participation rate of 16.6%). The mean age was 19.2±1.6. The female/male sex ratio was 1.8. The first cycle students represented 76%. The well-being mean state was better before than after the pandemic (7.8 vs 5.4; P<0.001). The main coping strategy was the acceptance of the situation (5.8±1.7). According to the students, their principal need for promoting their well-being at the faculty was having courses about technologies for studies (89.3%). For the qualitative part, we interviewed 16 students. Thirteen had a decline of their well-being after the lockdown. Isolation and adaptation to e-learning were the principal difficulties. However, mainly, they adopted engaging in coping strategies.

The medical students’ well-being decreased since the COVID-19 pandemic. Students adopting coping strategies were in the best well-being state. Psychosocial and solution basedmeasures should be put in place at the FMPM to foster the students’ well-being.

Lectures are a standard aspect across all realms of medical education. Previous studies have shown that visual design of presentation slides can affect learner outcomes. The purpose of this study was to develop a slide design rubric grounded in evidence-based, multimedia principles to enable objective evaluation of slide design.

Using the principles described in Mayers’ Principles of Multimedia Learning and Duarte’s Slide:ology, the authors extracted nineteen items important for slide design. We developed an online, rank-item, survey tool to identify the importance of each item among medical educators. Respondents selected which slide design principles they felt were important when attending alecture/didactic session and ranked their relative importance.

We received 225 responses to the survey. When asked to specifically rank elements from most important to least important, participants gave the most weight to “readability of figures anddata” and “[lack of] busy-ness of slide.” The lowest ranked elements were “transitions and animations” and “color schemes”. Using the results of the survey, including the free response, wedeveloped a rubric with relative weighting that followed our survey data.

With this information we have applied values to the various aspects of the rubric for a total score of 100. We hope that this rubric can be used for self-assessment or to evaluate andimprove slides for educators. Future research will be focused on implementing and validating the slide design survey and ensuring it is easily usable with a high inter-rater reliability and whetherself-assessment with the rubric improves presentation design and education quality.

Empathy is one of the soft skills required for building rapport and having meaningful patient-doctor interaction. Its effect on academic performance at the undergraduate level amongst Pakistani medical students is not known. This study was done to assess the relationship between empathy and gender, and the academic performance of undergraduate medical students of Azad Kashmir.

This cross-sectional study was done in Poonch Medical College, Azad Kashmir, Pakistan, from May 2018 to May 2019. The sample size for this study consisted of 200 students, determined by Krejcie and Morgan sample size determination chart. Students who agreed to participate in the study were enrolled according to convenience sampling using google forms. The Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) questionnaire was utilized as the data collection tool. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 25. The ethical review board approved the study. Comparisons between males and females at the IRI questions level, IRI domains level, and total IRI were made using the Mann-Whitney U test. The Spearman Rank Correlation test was used to assess the correlation between academic performance, IRI domains, and total IRI scores. A one-way ANOVA test was done to assess the relationship between academic performance and their study years.

A total of one hundred and fifty-one students (males 83, females 68, response rate 75.5%) participated in the study from the third to the final year of medical college. The mean empathyscores of males and females were 90.76±8.39 and 91.72±9.76 (P=0.552). On the empathic concern scale, female students had significantly higher empathy scores (25.44±3.49) than males(23.78±3.88) (P=0.008). No significant correlation was found between the empathy scores and academic performance, using Spearman’s correlation test (P>0.05).

Females showed significantly higher empathy scores than males for two Interpersonal Reactivity Index items and empathic concern scale. Overall, male and female students had similar total empathy scores. The relationship between empathy and academic performance was non-significant.

Evidence suggests that the performance of medical students is affected by the quality of teaching of clinical teachers, and the higher teachers’ teaching quality leads to better students’clinical performance. Hence, the present research aimed to investigate the association between teaching self-efficacy and quality of bedside teaching among medical teachers.

This is a cross-sectional study. To this end, 242 medical teachers and 830 medical students from 6 universities in different cities were selected using convenience sampling. The medicalteachers filled out Physician Teaching Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (α=0.93), and medical students completed the quality of bedside teaching questionnaire (BST) (α=0.91). Confirmatory factoranalysis (CFA), Pearson correlation coefficient, and multiple regression were used to analyze the collected data through SPSS 23 and Smart-PLS3 software.

The results of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) demonstrated that all items and measurement models had adequate reliability and validity to enter the final analysis (α>0.7,CR>0.7 AND AVE>0.50). Furthermore, the results showed teaching self-efficacy (r=0.27, p <0.001) and its components including self-regulation (r=0.24, p <0.001), dyadic regulation(r=0.22, p <0.001), and triadic regulation (r=0.33, p <0.001) had a positive and significant relationship with quality of bedside teaching. Also, the results of multiple regression revealed thatamong the predictor variables, only the triadic regulation variable could predict the quality of bedside teaching of medical teachers (β=0.326, p <0.001).

According to the findings, as the medical teachers’ teaching self-efficacy improves, they can provide high-quality teaching to students, which in turn will lead to better learning and, therefore better performance for medical students.

Internet addiction is a psychological disorder that can lead to serious damages to university students as a group at risk. This study aimed to determine the predictive role of tendencytoward mobile learning (purposeful use of mobile technologies for educational purposes) and emotional intelligence in Internet addiction in healthcare professional students.

A cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out on 403 healthcare professional students at Saveh University of Medical Sciences-Iran in 2021 using convenience sampling method. For data gathering, three questionnaires were used: willingness to use mobile learning, Young’s Internet Addiction Test, and the Emotional Intelligence Appraisal. Data analyses were done using Pearson Correlation Coefficient and Hierarchical Regression in SPSS 16 (Inc SPSS USA, IL, Chicago).

The mean age of the participants was 21.09±1.47 years; 125 subjects (31.01%) were boys and 278 (68.99%) girls. As the findings showed, 16.87% of the students had Internet addictionand 33% were on the edge of developing Internet addiction. Internet addiction was significantly negatively correlated with willingness to m-learning (r=-0.45, P=0.001) and emotional intelligence (r=-0.32, P=0.01). In addition, regression analysis results showed that the variables willingness to use learning and emotional intelligence explained 23% of the Internet addiction variance (p <0.001).

In the present study, a considerable number of the healthcare professional students had excessive and unnecessary use of the Internet. Emotional intelligence and willingness to use mobile learning had an inverse relationship with Internet addiction. There is a need to screen Internet-addicted students using proper screening tools and take primary preventive measures in this regard. In addition, proper measures are needed to be taken to improve emotional intelligence and mobile learning skills and control Internet addiction to some extent.

The aim of this study was to compare the effect of two educational

live practical and multimedia demonstrations of dental cast trimming.

In this quasi-experimental study, all 44 dental students from Zanjan University Dental School who were studying in the 8th semester entered the study. Using simple randomization, weassigned them to two groups. Multimedia and live demonstrations were used in the intervention (n=21) and control (n=23) groups, respectively. Knowledge of students was assessed using pretestand post-test. Practical skills were compared using the students’ final semester scores. The Individual Development and Educational Assessment questionnaire was used to assess the students’ reaction to instruction. For data analysis, mean and standard deviation, and independent and paired t-tests were used. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS software.

In terms of knowledge, the pre-test scores of the intervention and control groups were not significantly different (P=0.457), and the post-test scores of the two intervention and control groups had no significant difference (P=0.053); however, in both intervention and control groups there was a significant difference between the scores before and after the test, and the scores of both groups increased after training (P=0.001, P=0.001). In terms of practical skills, no significant difference was observed in the mean and standard deviation of the scores in the two groups (P=0.902). There was no significant difference in terms of the students’ reaction to instruction.

All students passed this course successfully. Further, their knowledge and skills were improved in both groups. Similar to the live practical demonstration, that of the multimedia led to apositive reaction to instruction in students. Therefore, multimedia education can be used well with the traditional method and even replaces it.

To describe structural changes that can be made in an emergency medicine residency program to increase diversity and foster an inclusive environment.

We established a diversity committee to introduce several simultaneous structural changes focusing on resident recruitment, education and engagement. Some of these changes include establishment of a scholarship to recruit visiting students from diverse backgrounds and a second look weekend for minority applicants. Others focused on ensuring residency didactics, were inclusive and addressed topics pertaining to diversity in emergency medicine.

We increased the number of minority residents underrepresented in medicine matching in our program from zero to between 2 and 4 annually. We increased the percentage of women matching in our program from 33% to 47%. We worked with residency leadership to increase the number of didactics focusing on diversity and inclusion.

Implementation of a Diversity Committee in emergency medicine training programs can be an important tool to improve diversity on a structural level.