Exploring speciality preferences and the influencing factors among undergraduate medical students at University of Kufa - Iraq: a questionnaire-based cross-sectional survey

Author(s):  
Amjed Hamid Obaid Al-Jaeed ◽  
Yosif Mohammed Hasan Jawad Al-Rammahi ◽  
Mohammed Albaqer Abbas Baqer Mawash ◽  
Hameed Kareem Shaalan Al-Hadrawy ◽  
Basima Shamkhi Jabbar Al Ghazali

Abstract Objective: To explore Kufa medical students’ preferences of carrier specialization and to investigate the factors that influence their choice of specialty. Methods: By using a non-probability convenience sampling technique, a cross-sectional study was performed on (566) medical students from the second-to-sixth-year in University of Kufa, from the 27th of January to the 21st of February 2019 to study the factors that affect the choice of specialties in undergraduate medical students. An anonymous, structured, self-administered questionnaire was handed out to the students and consisted of three sections covering demographic data, the preferred specialty, and the cause behind selecting the specialty.  Data analysis was performed using the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 25 for windows. Results: Cardiology was the most chosen specialty 55 (9.7%) followed by Pediatrics 46 (8.1%) and Dermatology 45 (8.0%). Additionally, 40 (7.1%) students haven’t decided their specialties yet. The most chosen factors in a descending fashion were "My Passion" which was chosen by 427 (75.4%) students, followed by "income" 67 (11.8%), "less on-call duties" 51 (9.0%), "mentor inspiration" 46 (8.1%), "family member inspiration" 34 (6.0%), "reputation" 22 (3.8%), "less competition" 15 (2.6%), and "number of residency years" 8 (1.4%). Conclusion: Being passionate about or having a keen interest in the selected speciality were the major influencing factors for students to select their future speciality. However, male students' choices based mainly on the “income” and “reputation” of the field, while females opted to choose “less on call duties” more than males. Continuous...  

2010 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
N C Aghukwa

<p><strong>Background</strong>. This study determined and compared responses of 5th- and 6th (final)-year medical students on their attitudes to psychiatry as a profession. Also elicited were their choices of area of future medical specialisation.</p><p><strong>Method</strong>. A prospective and cross-sectional study using an adapted 27-item self-administered questionnaire to obtain responses from 91 5th- and 6th-year medical students at Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria.</p><p><strong>Results.</strong> More than 60% of the students’ first choices for future specialisation were surgery, obstetrics/gynaecology or internal medicine. Psychiatry was the first preference for less than 2%. More than 75% of the students’ views on the overall merits and efficacy of psychiatry were positive, although they felt that psychiatry had low prestige and status as a profession. In addition, the same proportion considered that psychiatry was scientific, making advances in the treatment of major mental disorders, and helpful in liaison practice. More than 50% stated that psychiatry would not be their choice of last resort for residency education and the same proportion felt that friends and fellow students rather than family members would discourage them from specialising in psychiatry. More than 50% would feel uncomfortable with mentally ill patients, felt that psychiatry would not be financially rewarding, and did not think that psychiatrists abuse their legal power to hospitalise patients. Attitudes of the two groups of students to psychiatry as a profession were not significantly different (p&gt;0.05).</p><p><strong>Conclusion.</strong> A clinical clerkship in psychiatry did not influence the students’ choice of future specialisation.</p>


2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 11-15
Author(s):  
Husneara Begum ◽  
AKM Asaduzzaman ◽  
Humayun Kabir Talukder ◽  
Tahmina Nargis ◽  
Kazi Khairul Alam ◽  
...  

Introduction: This descriptive type of cross sectional study was carried out to explore the extent of use of social media by the undergraduate medical students and its consequences in medical education. This study was carried out in nine (Four public and five private) medical colleges all over Bangladesh during a period from July 2016-2017.Objective: The study revealed that the use of social media by the undergraduate medical students and its effect on their lifestyle and medical education.Methodology: Sample size was 673 medical students. Data was collected by self-administered semi-structured questionnaire from 673 respondents. Convenience sampling technique was adopted for data collection. For each variable frequency and percentages was calculated. There was also a part of in-depth interview for the respondents on the perception of use of Social media.Results: Among the students 54.68% females & 45.34% males, the mean age of the respondents was 20.76 years. Around 42.6% respondents were using Social media for4-6 years. The main use of social media by the respondents was Facebook 70.1%, main devices was mobile phone 96.8%. The main purpose of using the Social media for non-academic purposes such as, communicate with others26.0%, for chatting 51.3%. Maxium duration > 4 times / day up to >6 hours. Academic purpose 44.7% users using the SM every day. Six hundred forty six respondents agreed for negative effect of social media. 52.2% agreed that they used Social media during lecture class.Conclusion: Most students had positive thoughts towards using social media. Students were using social media for almost nonprofessional reason. So, there is need to build up widespread awareness to use social media by medical students for professionalisms.Bangladesh Journal of Medical Education Vol.9(2) 2018: 11-15


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 26-30
Author(s):  
Md Rezaul Karim ◽  
AKM Asaduzzaman ◽  
Md Humayun Kabir Talukder ◽  
Kazi Khairul Alam ◽  
Farhana Haque ◽  
...  

This descriptive type of cross sectional study was conducted to determine the learning styles of undergraduate medical students. The study period was from July 2017 to June 2018. The study was carried out among the students of 2nd, 3rd and 4th phases of MBBS course of 3 government and 4 non-government medical colleges of Bangladesh. Out of 7 medical colleges, 4 were within Dhaka and 3 were from outside Dhaka. The sample size was 1004 students. Medical colleges were selected purposively and convenience sampling technique was adopted for data collection. Bangla translated version Fleming's VARK (visual, auditory, read/write and kinesthetic) questionnaire was used to identify the learning styles of students. The study revealed that out of 1004 medical students, 64.2% preferred multimodal learning styles and rest 35.8% preferred unimodal learning styles. Among unimodal learning preferences, auditory (A) and kinesthetic (K) were the most preferred sensory modalities of learning. Among multimodal learning styles preferences, the combination of auditory & kinesthetic (AK) and auditory, read/write & kinesthetic (ARK) were predominant. There were only significant differences of the mean scores of visual (V) learning style among the male and female students. Majority of students preferred multimodal learning styles. Students are able to learn effectively as long as the teacher provides a blend of visual, auditory, read/writing and kinesthetic activates. The study recommended that teachers should be aware of the medical students' learning styles and aligning teaching-learning methods with learning styles will improve their learning and academic performance. Bangladesh Journal of Medical Education Vol.10(2) 2019: 26-30


2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (02) ◽  
pp. 52-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Samanta ◽  
S. Ghosh

Stress among medical students is a growing concern worldwide. The objectives were to assess the perceived stress, its sources and its pattern among undergraduate medical students and to find out determinants of stress among them. This cross sectional descriptive study was conducted among 225 undergraduate medical students of three academic years of Bankura Sammilani medical college during March-June 2015.Data were collected using a pretested, semistructured, anonymous, self-administered questionnaire which consisted of Perceived Stress Scale -10 for assessment of stress . Data were analysed using SPSS version 20.0. Binary Logistic Regression (BLR) model was adopted to find determinants of stress. Proportion of stressed students was 38.2% and mean stress score was 18.41(SD±6.22). Female students were more stressed than male students. About 80% of students perceived ‘vast syllabus’ and ‘lack of attention and time from teacher’ as stressors. Around 50% of students reported ‘Worry about future’, ‘Own expectation of becoming doctor’, ‘Inadequate quantity and quality of food in hostel’ and ‘Lack of recreation’ as stressors. ‘Disturbed in-campus political environment’ was perceived as a source of stress by 42.2% students. In BLR model, only five stressors, ‘Relationship problem with partner/love affair’, ‘Quarrel/maladjustment with friends’, ‘Living away from home’, ‘Competitive environment’, ‘Lack of attention and time from teachers’ were found statistically significant. Most of the stressors were related to academic and psychological domains. Regular review and restructuring of medical curriculum, implementing in-campus health promotional measures for students to cope with stress are needed to address the issue.


2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (03) ◽  
pp. 399-406
Author(s):  
Nazish Waheed ◽  
Brekhna Jamil ◽  
Robina Usman ◽  
Humera Waqar

Objective: This study was conducted to evaluate the knowledge and attitude of undergraduate medical students toward research. Study Design: Cross sectional study. Setting: Private Medical Colleges of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Period: November 2018 to July 2019. Material & Methods: A total of 938 final year medical students participated in the study. A validated self administered questionnaire was used for the collection of data. The student’s perception was assessed through questionnaire based on 5-point Likert scale. For the assessment of knowledge MCQs were marked as 1 in case of correct answer and 0 in case of incorrect answer. Results: Out of 1300 students, 938 returned the questionnaire resulting in a 74% response rate. 481(51%) participants were male and 457(49%) were females. The participants had a mean knowledge score of 6.103 out of a total of 15 questions and mean attitude score of 76.29. Conclusion: This study concludes a low knowledge score coupled with a positive attitude of doing research. More attention must be placed on these parameters in the curriculum to improve student knowledge in health research.


2020 ◽  
Vol 70 (6) ◽  
pp. 1902-07
Author(s):  
Adina Anwar ◽  
Erum Khan ◽  
Munizha Nisar ◽  
Rameesha Qutub ud Din ◽  
Syed Rubaba Azim ◽  
...  

Objective: To assess the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on learning of undergraduate medical students ofKarachi. Study Design: A cross-sectional, observational study. Place and Duration of Study: Study was conducted at conducted at the different public and private medicalcolleges, Karachi, from Mar to Apr 2020. Methodology: Google survey form based cross-sectional study conducted at the different public and privatemedical colleges, Karachi from March till April 2020. Non-probability consecutive sampling technique was used.This questionnaire consisted of 13 items which focused on the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the learning ofundergraduate medical students from Karachi. Results: The study was conducted on 110 undergraduate students. Out of which, majority of the participantswere from third year 45 (41%) and second year of MBBS 25 (23%). It was found that almost 71% of the undergraduate students had less likely to remember and understand material taught in online class and 60% had less likely to get answers to their queries as compared to regular classes. The results also showed that 49% of the undergraduate students were disturbed by technical issues during online classes. Furthermore, it was also found that learning of 54 out of 110 undergraduate students was always affected due to loss of clinical rotations. Strong association were also found in between online satisfaction and stressful condition due to online classes. Conclusion: It was concluded that COVID-19 pandemic greatly affected the learning of the undergraduatemedical students and have negatively impacted their satisfaction level towards their studies.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-25
Author(s):  
Farhana Haque ◽  
Md Humayun Kabir Talukder ◽  
Kazi Khairul Alam ◽  
Sadia Jabeen Khan ◽  
Md Rezaul Karim

This study set out to identify the institutional difficulties encountered by the undergraduate medical students of Bangladesh. This was a descriptive type of cross sectional study, conducted from July 2017 to June 2018. The population of the study consisted of undergraduate medical students and medical teachers of 8 medical colleges of Bangladesh including both government and non-government which were located in Dhaka and outside of the Dhaka. Medical colleges and medical teachers were selected purposively and students were selected by the convenience sampling technique. The questionnaire using five points Likert scale were administered on 1059 medical students and in-depth interviews were conducted with 13 medical teachers. The study revealed that most of the students faced institutional related difficulties, particularly cleanliness of campus 480 (45.6%), unclean toilet 762 (72%), poor quality canteen 663 (63%), poor games facilities 792 (75%), insufficient hostel accommodation 669 (65.2%), unclean hostel 652 (63.5%), insufficient recreation facilities in hostel 702 (68.5%) and irregular hostel supervision by the authority 590 (57.6%). Based on the study, it was suggested that concerned authority should consider the findings and should take some significant steps for sustainable solutions to the difficulties of the students. Bangladesh Journal of Medical Education Vol.10(2) 2019: 23-25


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gilbert Lazarus ◽  
Ardi Findyartini ◽  
Azis Muhammad Putera ◽  
Nico Gamalliel ◽  
David Nugraha ◽  
...  

Abstract Background The question to involve or restrict medical students’ involvement in the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic response remains contentious. As their state of preparation and perceptions in volunteering during this pandemic have yet to be investigated, this study aims to evaluate Indonesian medical students’ willingness to volunteer and readiness to practice during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods A web-based survey was conducted among undergraduate medical students throughout Indonesia. Socio-demographic and social interaction information, in addition to willingness to volunteer and readiness to practice, were obtained using a self-reported questionnaire. The significance level was set at 5%. Results Among 4870 participants, 2374 (48.7%) expressed their willingness to volunteer, while only 906 (18.6%) had adequate readiness to practice. Male students, students with prior volunteering experience in health or non-health sectors, and students from public universities or living in Central Indonesia (vs Java) had higher scores of willingness and readiness to volunteer. Students from Sumatra also had better preparedness (odds ratio [OR] 1.56, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.15–2.12, p = 0.004), while the opposite occurred for students from Eastern Indonesia (OR 0.63, 95% CI: 0.44–0.89, p = 0.002)–when compared to students from Java. In addition, compared to students with high family income, students from lower-middle income families were less willing to volunteer (OR 0.76, 95% CI: 0.59–0.98, p = 0.034), though those with low family income had better readiness (OR 1.51, 95% CI: 1.10–2.08, p = 0.011). Shortage of medical personnel, sense of duty, and solicitation by stakeholders were the main reasons increasing the students’ willingness to volunteer; whereas contrarily fear for own’s health, absence of a cure, and fear of harming patients were the primary factors diminishing their willingness to volunteer. Conclusion Our findings indicated that many Indonesian medical students are willing to volunteer, yet only few of them were ready to practice, indicating that further preparations are required to maximize their potentials and minimize their exposure to hazards. We suggest that their potentials as a firm support system during the pandemic should not be overlooked, and that the integration of relevant courses to the medical curricula are imperative to prepare for future public health emergencies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (12) ◽  
pp. 1723-1731
Author(s):  
Waseem Sajjad ◽  
Anwisha Samreen ◽  
Syed Asfand Yar Shah ◽  
Afifa Batool ◽  
Muhammad Umair ◽  
...  

Objectives: To determine the prevalence of depression among medical students and its association with various sociodemographic characteristics. Study Design: Cross-Sectional Study. Setting: Nishtar Medical University, Multan. Period: August 2019 to September 2020. Material & Methods: A sample of 315 medical students were chosen by stratified random sampling technique. Patient Health Questionnaire 9 (PHQ-9) was used for screening and assessing the severity of depression. A special questionnaire was designed containing sociodemographic and educational characteristics. Data were collected via online forms and were analyzed using SPSS V26. Results: Out of 315 students, who participated in the study, 134 (42.5%) were female students, and 181 (57.5%) were male students. 63 (20%) students were taken from each academic year from 1st year through 5th year (final year). 64% of the students were suffering from depression. The proportion of students suffering from mild, moderate, moderately severe, and severe depression was 27%, 18%, 11%, and 8% respectively. Depression was more prevalent among female students (73.1%) as compared to male students (58.0%) with a p-value <0.05. Conclusion: Depression is a serious problem for medical students. It was significant among female, preclinical students, living in the home with a family history of depression in financial pressure. It should be sorted out early to make early interventions.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdelhaleem Mohammed ◽  
Muneer Musa

Abstract Background: Medical students have unfavorable attitude towards Neurology and often perceive it as the most difficult medical specialty. This perception is described as " neurophobia " in the medical literature and its effects and potential solutions are being investigated in many countries around the world.Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted in which a questionnaire was administered to a sample of third, fourth, fifth and sixth years’ medical students at Faculty of Medicine, University of Khartoum. The sample size was 310 selected through stratified, systematic random sampling technique. In this study, the questionnaire includes the following aspects: demographic data, assessment of the level of interest in Neurology as a future career, evaluating the satisfaction with the neurosciences course, identifying the factors which affect the attitude of students towards Neurology, highlighting the most useful strategies in teaching Neurology.Results: Females constituted 71% of the respondents. 37.4% of the students had little or no interest and only 9.4% were strongly interested in Neurology.46.8% of the students graded their satisfaction with the course as neutral (i.e.: moderate) and 30.6% were unsatisfied with the delivered course (6.8% of them were strongly unsatisfied). Limited exposure to neurological patients and separation of basic sciences teaching from clinical application were considered as the top contributing factors to formation of this negative perception towards Neurology. Increased exposure to neurological patients, three dimensional simulators, video recordings, online resources as well as improving teaching skills of the lecturers were labeled as the most fruitful strategies to make progress in Neurology teaching.Conclusion: This study reveals that 'neurophobia' probably affects a considerable proportion of medical students in Khartoum University. It reflects the possible contributing factors; Besides It encourages the stakeholders to modify the current approach to neuroscience and neurology education, and in this regard, it puts forward several strategies to make an evolution in this arena.


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