The learning environment of four undergraduate health professional schools: Lessons learned

10.12669/pjms.35.3.712Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences353598-60

Knowledge and orientations of medical interns toward periodontal disease in Saudi Arabia

Background and Aim: This study was conducted to assess the periodontal knowledge, orienta ons of Saudi medical interns and the medical curriculum. Study Popula on and Methodology: Ques onnaires were distributed to 221 medical interns chosen randomly from two major educa onal ins tu ons in Saudi Arabia. Ques ons were developed from literature reviews. The ques onnaire had ve true/false knowledge items, and eight Likert-scale ques ons. Data were analyzed by computerized SPSS (version 20). Level of signi cance was set at P < 0.05. Results: Of the 221 respondents, 66% were male and 34% were female. Most of the par cipants were 24 years old (48%). About 40% of the interns answered all ve true/false general knowledge ques ons correctly, nearly half of the respondents (49.8%) reported they never asked pa ents if they were diagnosed with periodontal disease, 93.2% reported not receiving any training about periodontal disease in medical school, 23.5% reported they would feel absolutely uncomfortable performing a simple periodontal examina on, about one-third of interns (29.4%) agreed that pa ents expect physicians to discuss/screen for periodontal disease, 43.9% felt that discussing/evalua ng the periodontal status of their pa ents was peripheral to their role as physicians, nearly half of interns (48.4%) reported never screening pa ents for periodontal disease, and 33% stated they never referred pa ents to den sts. Conclusion: Medical interns were not prepared nor trained to screen pa ents for periodontal disease. They had limited knowledge about the associa on between periodontal health and general health. Oral health training as part of the medical curriculum is strongly recommended

The pattern of social media use and its association with academic performance among medical students

Item does not contain fulltextBACKGROUND: There are concerns that the use of social media (SM) among medical students could affect academic performance. The objectives of the study were to investigate the pattern and reasons for SM use and their association with academic performance. METHODS: A stratified random sample, frequency distribution and comparison of categorical variables with Chi-square and Fisher exact tests were used. RESULTS: Of the 97% who responded, 98% used SM. The most popular were Whatsapp (87.8%), You tube (60.8%) and Twitter (51.8%) for general use; while You tube (83.5%), Whatsapp (35.5%) and Twitter (35.3%) for learning. For general use, there was a significant higher number of visits to You tube and Facebook among male students, while the reverse was true for Instagram and Path. Around 71% visited SM >4 times/day and 55% spent 1-4 hours/day. The main reasons for SM use were entertainment (95.8%), staying up-to-date with news (88.3%), and socializing (85.5%); for academic studies (40%). There was no significant association between Grade Point Average and the frequency of daily SM use or use during lectures. CONCLUSIONS: While almost all the students used SM, only a minority used them for academic purposes. SM use was not associated with academic performance