Selection of medical students : the relationship between pre-admission academic achievements & students' profiles to performance in medical school

AIM: A retrospective study to determine the association between pre-admission academic achievement and students' profiles with their medical school performance was conducted in the Faculty of M~dicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia from May 2005 to October 2005. This study analysed 5 Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) subjects (i.e. Bahasa Malaysia, English, Biology, Chemistry and Physics) and type of pre-admission programme [matriculation or Sijil Tinggi Pelajaran Malaysia (STPM)]. Students' profiles include their demographic variables and motivational factors. METHOD: All students who have gone through the pre-clinical years and all the clinical postings in Year 3 and Year 4 are included in this study (n=147). The outcome measures were the results of Year 2, postings of Medicine-Surgery, Paediatrics, Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Psychiatry, ENT, Dermatology, Ophthalmology. Year 2 examination results represent performance in the pre-clinical years while the rest of the outcomes represent performance in the early clinical years. The outcome of grades A, B+ and B are considered as good results while grades C+, C and F are average/poor results. Statistical tests used to determine the associations are Chi-square and Fisher's Exact test. Further analysis was carried out using logistic regression to examine the relationship between important variables and all the outcomes. RESULTS: Univariate analysis found variables associated with good performance in medical school to include: four SPM subjects (i.e. English, Biology, Chemistry and Physics), STPM programme, male, Chinese and students from day schools. At final assessment, students who were from the STPM programme were 12.2 times more likely to perform well in Year 2, 16.1 times more likely in Medicine-Surgery and 3.6 times more likely in Ophthalmology. Students who were good in Biology were 2.6 times more likely to perform well in Year 2, while those good in Physics were 5 times more likely to perform well in Medicine-Surgery, students who did well in Chemistry were 2.4 times more likely to perform well in Psychiatry, 4.8 times more in ENT and 2.7 times more in Ophthalmology. Those from day school were 3.5 times more likely to do well in Psychiatry. Parental wish was inversely related to the performance in Ophthalmology while choice of wide range of job options in medicine was inversely related to outcomes in Year 2 and ENT. CONCLUSION: This study suggests that there is a relationship between pre-admission qualifications, students' profile and subsequent performance in the medical school

Bibliometric analysis on medical education during Covid-19 pandemic

Medical education encompasses vast topics related to teaching-learning, among medical students. Bibliometric analysis is a scientific method to review properties of academic publications using quantitative statistical techniques. Aim of this study is to provide a bibliometric analysis of scholarly publications specifically on medical education related topics during the COVID-19 pandemic. The relevant documents on medical education were obtained from the Scopus database. Database search performed on 20th March 2022 and analysed using Microsoft Excel 365, VOSviewer and Harzing’s Publish or Perish. A total of 1436 documents were retrieved from Scopus database, left with 782 documents after filtering. For the past 2 years, the total citations received are 4974, while 44% of the documents were never cited. The most productive journal is BMC Medical Education. Most cited article is entitled: Medical Student Education in the Time of COVID-19 published in 2020. Most frequently used author keyword is covid-19. Visualisation on citation analysis among countries reveal the strongest link by United States of America with other countries. The current study provides a bibliometric perspective on the available medical education related publications in addressing issues related to covid-19 that is useful to guide them in considering possible future studies

Use of item analysis to improve the quality of single best answer multiple choice question in summative assessment of undergraduate medical students in Malaysia

Background: Single best answer (SBA) as multiple-choice items are often advantageous to use for its reliability and validity. However, SBA requires good number of plausible distractors to achieve reliability. Apart from psychometric evaluation of assessment it is important to perform item analysis to improve quality of items by analysing difficulty index (DIF I), discrimination index (DI) and distractor efficiency (DE) based on number of non-functional distractors (NFD). Objective: To evaluate quality of SBA items administered in professional examination to apply corrective measures determined by DIF I, DI and DE using students’ assessment score. Method: An evaluation of post summative assessment (professional examination) of SBA items as part of psychometric assessment is performed after 86 weeks of teaching in preclinical phase of MD program. Forty SBA items and 160 distractors inclusive of key were assessed using item analysis. Hundred and thirty six students’ score of SBA was analysed for mean and standard deviation, DIF I, DI and DE using MS Excel 2007. Unpaired t-test was applied to determine DE in relation to DIF I and DI with level of significance. Item-total correlation (r) and internal consistency by Cronbach’s alpha and parallel-form method was also computed. Result: Fifteen items had DIF I = 0.31–0.61 and 25 items had DIF I (≤ 0.30 or ≥ 0.61). Twenty six items had DI = 0.15 – ≥ 0.25 compared to 14 items with DI (≤ 0.15). There were 26(65%) items with 1–3 NFD and 14 (35%) items without any NFD. Thirty nine (32.50%) distractors were with choice frequency = 0. Overall mean DE was 65.8% and NFD was 49 (40.5%). DE in relation to DIF I and DI were statistically significant with p = 0.010 and 0.020 respectively. Item-total correlation for most items was < 0.3. Internal consistency by Cronbach’s alpha in SBA Test 1 and 2 was 0.51 and 0.41 respectively and constancy by parallel-form method was 0.57 between SBA Test 1 and 2. Conclusion: The high frequency of difficult or easy items and moderate to poor discrimination suggest the need of items corrective measure. Increased number of NFD and low DE in this study indicates difficulty of teaching faculty in developing plausible distractors for SBA questions. This has been reflected in poor reliability established by alpha. Item analysis result emphasises the need of evaluation to provide feedback and to improve quality of SBA items in assessment

Plasma isoflavones in Malaysian men according to vegetarianism and by age

Epidemiological studies indicate lower prevalences of breast and prostate cancers and cardiovascular disease in Southeast Asia where vegetarianism is popular and diets are traditionally high in phytoestrogens. This study assessed plasma isoflavones in vegetarian and non-vegetarian Malaysian men according to age. Daidzein, genistein, equol (a daidzein metabolite), formononetin, biochanin A, estrone, estradiol and testosterone were measured by validated liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LCMSMS). Plasma isoflavone and sex hormone concentrations were measured in 225 subjects according to age (18-34, 35-44 and 45-67 years old). In all age groups, vegetarians had a higher concentration of circulating isoflavones compared with non-vegetarians especially in the 45-67 year age group where all isoflavones except equol, were significantly higher in vegetarians compared with omnivores. By contrast, the 18-34 year group had a significantly higher concentration of daidzein in vegetarians and significantly higher testosterone and estrone concentrations compared with non-vegetarians. In this age group there were weak correlations between estrone, estradiol and testosterone with some of the isoflavones. This human study provides the first Malaysian data for the phytoestrogen status of vegetarian and nonvegetarian men

Tips on housemanship you wish you knew before

Understanding what it feels like to go through the hard, challenging life as a young house officer equipped with knowledge but with zero experience, we strive to come up with the best tips and important highlights to ensure your journey through housemanship is less painful. Chapters covers all the major postings as well as providing useful insights into radiology, anaesthesiology and pathology-related matters. We have also incorporated a chapter on how to cope with housemanship. Knowing how stressful it can be - fear of the unknown, unexpected, unfamiliar working conditions in the hospital may be detrimental to those who do not posses good survival skills. This book is specially dedicated to our students who are just about to venture out into the thrilling and challenging world of housemanship

A User study on virtual tutor mobile augmented reality from undergraduate medical student perspectives

Mobile Augmented Reality (MAR) is another fascinating educational innovation with broad potential. It allows for new educational tactics, particularly in medicine. The concept of MAR can help learning activities in several ways, including allowing faster access to information in the mobile platform, increasing student motivation, making the learning process easier and more efficient, and aiding students in better understanding important concepts. However, three things needed to be considered: interface design, the usefulness of Augmented Reality (AR), technical problems with the use of AR applications, and teacher training on the use of AR applications. Without a well-designed interface and guidance for the students, AR technology can be too complicated to use, especially for those who are not familiar with the technology. An interface should be easy to remember and learnt by the user on how to best utilize it. In this study, we present a virtual tutor in the tutorial section, named Otus, which aids the students on how to use a MAR application called BARA (Brain Anatomy Revision Application). Our goal is to create a fluid interface flow in this MAR application for education that includes a virtual tutor. By including a virtual tutor, users can quickly increase their comprehension of how to use the application on their own. We ran an experiment to evaluate the usefulness of the Otus, comparing two groups: one was the experimental group, which consisted of 12 students using BARA with Otus in the tutorial, and the other was control group, which consisted of 12 students using BARA without Otus. We concluded from our questionnaire and observations that the experimental group was able to experience AR step by step and required more time to navigate the MAR app

Knowledge and attitude of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) medical students on forest bathing

Forest bathing or Shinrin-Yoku is a practice of being mindful of nature and it offers multiple health benefits in both physiological and psychological factors. This study aimed to determine the knowledge and attitude of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) medical students towards forest bathing and its relationship with the sociodemographic factors. A total of 165 UKM medical students were recruited using proportionate stratified random sampling. The subjects were then categorized based on the academic year (Year 1 - Year 5) from May 2021 until September 2021. Exclusion criteria includes those who deferred their academic year and/or who were hospitalized. A questionnaire was given via a google form consisting of sociodemographic data details and 15 questions for each knowledge and attitude on forest bathing. The prevalence of good knowledge and good attitude of UKM medical students towards forest bathing were 64.2% (n=106) and 50.9% (n=84) respectively. Female medical students had a good knowledge (n=63, 73.3%) and good attitude (n=52, 60.5%) compared to male medical students’ knowledge (n=43, 54.4%) and attitude (n=32, 10.5%), with a p-value of 0.012 and 0.010 respectively. Otherwise, other sociodemographic factors including race, medical year and level of lifestyle did not affect participants’ knowledge and attitude on forest bathing. Majority of UKM medical students have a higher prevalence of good knowledge compared to good attitude on forest bathing. Therefore, we recommend forest bathing to be integrated into the medical curriculum as part of awareness especially in male medical students

Delineating the proof-of-concept of virtual reality for interprofessional education in simulating obesity case management

This article delineates the proof-of-concept of virtual reality for interprofessional education in simulating obesity case management among healthcare profession students. Healthcare profession students, including dietetics, medical and nursing students in Universiti Putra Malaysia, will be recruited as a sample. This study starts with a workshop session on IP simulation-based obesity education and will be integrated into the virtual world (VW) online software. Students' knowledge and attitude will be assessed pre and post of the virtual IPE exposures. The developed obesity-simulated case would successfully lead to IPE implementation, and students who received virtual IPE would significantly have a better knowledge of obesity management and a positive attitude towards IPE. The virtual IPE would be a practical pedagogical approach to prepare the health profession students for a collaborative environment, improve technical skills, and strengthen soft skills such as communicating effectively

A Review of Multimedia Usage in Embryology Education

Embryology, which is a part of anatomy curriculum, is well known to be most difficult to teach. Applied embryology is important in medical practice especially in obstetrics and gynecology. To support teaching embryology, a few multimedia methods have been introduced for the past twenty years, such as animations, two dimensional illustrations, three-dimensional illustrations, movies, and video. Innovative anatomy teaching and learning technology, particularly in the embryology syllabus, dramatically boosts students’ understanding and interest while also indirectly simplifies anatomists’ job. Students are excited to be able to visualize the embryo changes at any gestational age from fertilization to fetus development. Students’ motivation is increased, and their comprehension and memorization are improved. In this review, we elaborate on the details of multimedia methods used for embryology teaching and learning as an alternative to traditional lectures and tutorials. The variety of approaches aids in reducing boredom and maintaining high levels of concentration. As a result, the multimedia usage is useful for long-term memorization

A review of multimedia usage in embryology education

Embryology, which is a part of anatomy curriculum, is well known to be most difficult to teach. Applied embryology is important in medical practice especially in obstetrics and gynecology. To support teaching embryology, a few multimedia methods have been introduced for the past twenty years, such as animations, two-dimensional illustrations, three-dimensional illustrations, movies, and video. Innovative anatomy teaching and learning technology, particularly in the embryology syllabus, dramatically boosts students’ understanding and interest while also indirectly simplifies anatomists’ job. Students are excited to be able to visualize the embryo changes at any gestational age from fertilization to fetus development. Students’ motivation is increased, and their comprehension and memorization are improved. In this review, we elaborate on the details of multimedia methods used for embryology teaching and learning as an alternative to traditional lectures and tutorials. The variety of approaches aids in reducing boredom and maintaining high levels of concentration. As a result, the multimedia usage is useful for long-term memorization