Differences In The Attitudes Of Clinical And Pre-clinical Medical Students To Mental Illness

BackgroundThe quality of care provided to psychiatry patients by doctors can be influenced by attitudes towards mental illness. Equally important is the attitude of medical students as future treating doctors towards mental illness. This survey compares the differences in the attitudes of pre-clinical and clinical years student to mental illness.AimsTo compare attitudes of pre-clinical and clinical medical students’ to mental illness.MethodsA cross-sectional survey of 212 clinical students (CS) and pre-clinical students (PS) at Newcastle University. Each responded anonymously to an electronic questionnaire. The responses take the form of: Yes/No, free text, order of preference, and Likert scale. Results were analysed based on basic statistical analysis.ResultsLittle differences exist between the 2 groups in their beliefs that psychiatric patients are not difficult to like, mental illness can be a result of social adversity, psychiatry patients often recover and that people with mental illness should be offered a job with responsibility. However, 54% PS disagreed that mental illness often leads to violence, compared to 66% CS and 87% of PS identified that mental illness can be genetic in origin compared with CS of 91%.ConclusionThis survey did not identify any significant difference between the attitudes of pre-clinical and clinical students in most of the domains. However, a higher percentage of clinical students associate violence with mental illness and are unwilling to consider an elective period in psychiatry.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Imagining oneself: Narrative evaluations of the professional identities of learners in a transnational higher-educational setting

This article uses a narrative approach to investigate the learning experiences of third-year medical students in a transnational higher educational setting, specifically during an elective period abroad. The students evaluate their learning experiences in an unfamiliar environment both in relation to previous learning and in relation to their possible or imagined future professional identities. Through this process, these students demonstrate how learning may take place through participation outside or alongside the formal curriculum, in the informal and the hidden curriculum (Leask and Bridge 2013). These narrative evaluations represent a reflective resource for the learners and their peers. They may also provide other stakeholders in transnational higher educational settings, including teachers, programme coordinators, educational managers and policy-makers, with an understanding of the experiences of mobile students in the informal curriculum.

Castles in the air: civilian trainee experiences with the RAF

It is a little-known fact that specialist registrar training allows an elective period of up to 3 months without affecting a trainee's Certificate of Completion of Specialist Training (CCST). The Postgraduate Dean for Oxford had discussed the idea of such an elective scheme with the military and I therefore saw in the elective an opportunity to do something different before becoming a consultant. As an ex-member of the Territorial Army, my wife was very supportive and encouraged me by telling me that I would never withstand the rigours of a military lifestyle.

Acupuncture in a Rehabilitation Setting: Wu Visits Wuhan

This paper reports the personal experiences encountered by the author (a medical student) on an elective period at a large rehabilitation unit of Tongji Hospital in Wuhan, China. The author had the opportunity to learn the principles of traditional Chinese medicine and practise blunt needling under careful supervision. This elective experience illustrated, for the author, how acupuncture can be used alongside western medicine to restore patients to their optimum state of health.

Modern Chinese Use of Tcm as Seen on a Student Elective

The authors, medical students of Bristol University, spent their elective period of almost six weeks during September and October 1993 in the Acupuncture Department of the First Teaching Hospital of Beijing Medical University. The aim of the elective was to see traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in clinical practice, especially in conjunction with western medicine, and to try to learn the fundamentals of the theory and practice of TCM. This report details the teaching received and discusses the modern Chinese attitudes to medical treatment and TCM in particular.

An Example of How Bad Public Relations Can Defeat a Good Water Pollution Control Project

Cedae, a Rio de Janeiro Government Agency, carefully planned and designed an ocean outfall to be built in Barra da Tijuca, one of the most valuable and beautiful dwelling regions of Rio de Janeiro. Due to the non-implementation of a public enlightening campaign, Cedae had to face radical community opposition to the outfall construction, fronted by very active persons, interested in personal promotion in a political elective period. The authors concluded that it is indispensable for any planned public work to put an action in enlightening public information program, based on fact and mutual understanding, to inform the community to be served about the various technical, economical and social questions involved and as to the facilities to be built.