UKM medical graduates’ perception of their communication skills during housemanship

The art of talking to patients and their relatives does not come naturally to most of us and the ability to put oneself in the patients’ predicament is difficult particularly for the young doctors. To identify the communication abilities of the young doctors, a cross sectional study was carried out on 32 house officers who graduated from UKM in 2004 during their house jobs at different hospitals in Malaysia. A standardized questionnaire was used to collect the data. Fifty nine percent respondents claimed that they had communicated very well with patients while 69% with support staff and 88% with peers. On the other hand 38% and 41% of the respondents claimed they communicated very well with their superiors and families of patients. Only 22% of the graduates’ skills of communication in breaking bad news were very well, while 50% and 81% were very well in counselling patients and taking consent for procedures. Curriculum planners need to emphasize the importance of developing good communication skills in all aspects for the future doctor

Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy In The Academy Medicalcentre, Khartoum, Sudan

Objective: To highlight the results of minimum access surgery in Sudanese patients. Design: Prospective audit of laparoscopic cholecystectomies. Setting: The Academy Medical center (Yastabshiroon), Teaching University Hospital. Subjects: All the patients who had this type of surgery were included in the study. Clinical and operative data were evacuated from March 2002 to March 2004. Main outcome measures: One hundred and twenty patients had laparoscopic cholecystectomy at the center. There were 97 females and 23 males; age range was 22-90 years with a mean of 52 years. Indications for surgery were repeated attacks of biliary colic in 38, chronic cholecystitis in 60, acute cholecystis in 10 and mucocele in 12 patients. Results: Three patients with chronic cholecystitis had peri-portal fibrosis due to bilharzial infestations, in spite of which laparoscopic surgery was successful. Operating time was 25-120 minutes with a mean of 47 minutes. Conversion was performed in six (2%) patients because of bleeding and four for extensive dense adhesions. There was one mortality case of a 75-year-old female who had pulmonary embolus. Hospital stay was 16-24 hours with a mean of 22 hours. Two patients had port site discharge. Conclusion: In general, patients were satisfied with the results of surgery and this encourages us to popularise this procedure to take off in the Sudan. East African Medical Journal Vol.82(1) 2005: 10-1