Research Thinking in Medical Profession

Thinking can simply be viewed as, generating your own thoughts on anything, and reviewing these till you comprehend it at some minimum level. Thinking is the most powerful attribute of a human being. In our daily life or even in professional work settings, most of the time our thinking remains limited to others’ ideas or already known facts and it is enough well to carry out our work in a “by default” pattern. While working in a clinical setup we daily confront many disease conditions, and we generally accept and deal with the whole course of illnesses under our memorized knowledge. Our mind is ready to see or accept all pathophysiologic & clinical events of a given disease, management modalities, treatment outcomes, and the complications, as they had been reported or taught and not anything in between. We don’t notice or concentrate on why any variability or difference happening beyond reasons we have learned through our training. This is good enough to run routine practices. But a problem, or a worse happening, costing human suffering or life, need little “thinking” on “why” of it, specifically if it is not explained previously. Actually, any visible variability or event has a set of many underlying sub-events or connections which were linked to eventually produce an apparent happening. The primary act of a researcher’s mind is to notice the varied happening and the job is to theorize its reasons, testify the assumed theory under applicable scientific methods, and infer based on identified facts. Knowledge is floating behind any unexplained thing or such visible phenomenon; it just needs taking notice of it and “thinking” on ‘why & how” of it. Here it would be relevant to recall the saying of a great Nobel laureate Albert Szent-Gyorgyi (medicine 1937) that “Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and to think what nobody else has thought.” This would be the beginning of research thinking. Research thinking is not a one-moment process, rather a start of a chain of connected thoughts which demands more and more reviews and some actions too, till you reach some workable idea or hypothesis. Initially, your thinking may have many intuitive, fictional, or irrational elements but as you move forward, you become more & more pragmatic, and your construct follows scientific rules. Initially, your conceptualized construct may have some ridiculous postulates but actually, you are making efforts towards a way to produce controlled evidence for them. That is the practical pathway of the research. As a matter of fact, it is your intuitiveness or dreaming capacity with which you connect things in a unique or different way to explain a problem or happening which is the real essence of research. Here measures like deep reading on that particular issue, exploring historical purview, talking to fellows, or even conducting small experiments, help a lot to refine and improve your initial theory or construct. “I find for myself that my first thought is never my best thought. My first thought is always someone else’s; it’s always what I’ve already heard about the subject, always the conventional wisdom. It is only by concentrating, sticking to the question, being patient, letting all the parts of my mind come into play, that I arrive at an original idea. By giving my brain chances to make associations, draw connections, take me by surprise”. And often even that idea doesn’t turn out to be very good. I need time to think about it, too, to make mistakes and recognize them, to make false starts and correct them, to outlast my impulses, to defeat my desire to declare the job done and move on to the next thing. You do your best thinking by slowing down and concentrating. The best way to improve your ability to think is to spend time thinking

Assessment of Emotional Intelligence Levels among Students of a Public Medical College of Pakistan amidst the Crisis of Covid-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT                              Purpose                 Aim of the study was to determine the standards of emotional intelligence among students of Rawalpindi Medical University, Rawalpindi.                            Method                 A cross-sectional study, employing the use of a self-made online questionnaire, was carried out among the students of Rawalpindi Medical University’s 1st year to final year MBBS. Convenience sampling was used to collect data, which was subsequently entered into Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version.25 for analysis. Results                   The average value of emotional intelligence was calculated to be 54.34% ±13.89 SD; mean values for emotional awareness, emotional management and social awareness were found to be 65.15% ±12.6 SD, 51.12% ±12.12 SD and 48.4% ±17.39 SD respectively.                 Conclusion                             The emotional intelligence of the students amidst the Corona virus pandemic had a noticeably lower value compared to the values determined previously in other studies in the absence of such pandemic. This result points towards the role of pandemic-induced stress in the apparent decrease of emotional intelligence

Perception about Health and Disease

Background: To assess peoples’ general concepts about health and disease and basis of disease occurrence in man in an objective way. Methods: It was an observational descriptive study. Perceptions of the attendants (n=110) of the patients who approached a public sector tertiary care hospital in Rawalpindi were assessed through a questionnaire by interviewer-administered technique. Their concepts about health and disease were explored by open-ended questions and their understanding of ways of disease causation evaluated six sets of closed ended options. Results: Of the total study participants (n=110), with mean age 36 Years, 58% were males and 42% were females. Majority were married (71%) , of lower economic status (45%), and rural area (70%). Education in 51% was above 10years of schooling. In 36% subjects concept of health and in 25% concept of disease was scientifically appropriate at their level. On average 66.3% of the respondents had concept of scientific basis of disease. causation while 33.6% did not hold scientifically sound concepts. In set-IV majority believed in that disease may result as punishment from God but this belief was significantly high in females (X2cal= 8.1, P<0.005). Conclusion: Though people understandings in matter of health are not optimum but it is promising within their socioeconomic capacity. Efforts are needed to promote health literacy among masses beyond the conventional mode. Care providers should respect their beliefs while interacting with patients

Level of Job Satisfaction in Doctors

Background: To assess and compare the level of job satisfaction in different medical specialties and to identify the areas needing improvement. Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted among doctors of Rawalpindi Medical College and teaching hospitals (Holy Family Hospital (HFH) Rawalpindi General Hospital (RGH) and District Head Quarters Hospital (DHQ) over a period of 3 months from April-July 2006. A total of 99 doctors, 33 each from the department of Medicine, Surgery and Basic Sciences were included in the study by non-probability purposive sampling. Medical officers and registrars of medical and surgical units in teaching hospitals and demonstrators of basic sciences employed in Rawalpindi Medical College were included. Data was collected by means of self designed structured questionnaire. A standardized tool, Warr-Cook-Wall scale was used to assess the level of job satisfaction in doctors. Results: Of the total 99 study participants, 51.5% doctors of basic sciences and 43.9% of clinical sciences (Medicine and Surgery) were satisfied with their total income. Working environment was satisfactory in the opinion of 73% and 66.6% doctors of basic and clinical sciences respectively. Of the study participants, 78.7% were satisfied with the behaviour of colleagues. Overall 60.6% and 44.4% doctors were satisfied with their working hours and system of promotion respectively. Only 42.4% doctors of clinical sciences were satisfied with their work-load. 64.6% were satisfied with the freedom to choose their method of work. Overall job satisfaction was found to be 61.9%. Conclusion: Majority of the doctors are satisfied with their jobs. However a significant number on the clinical side has reservations regarding income, working hours and system of promotion

Outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID 19) in Pakistan: Psychological impact and coping strategies of health care professionals

Objective: This study was conducted to explore factors that can impact psychological health and coping strategies to help health care professionals (HCPs) to perform their duties.Methods: A cross sectional survey was conducted using structured questionnaire electronically shared with the participants after ethical approval. Descriptive statistics were calculated for socio demographic variables. Chi squared χ2 test was used to compare the responses between different groups of HCPs.Results: Survey was completed by 250 participants. They performed their duties diligently during outbreak but were concerned about their safety, had fear of infecting themselves and their family members. Lack of evidence-based guidelines for patient management, news about pandemic situation through media and to deal with uncooperative patients not willing for quarantine added to their stress. receiving honour and respect from general public in recognition of services, monetary benefit, adequate training to treat COVID-19, provision of personal protective equipment from government were reported as coping strategies for psychological impact.Conclusions: COVID-19 outbreak had psychological impact on HCPs, yet they continued to perform their duties carefully as moral obligation. Continued moral with financial support and acknowledgement of their services by government, organization and general public was reported to have psychological benefit