Mastering your fellowship: Part 3, 2022

The series, 'Mastering your Fellowship', provides examples of the question formats encountered in the written and clinical examinations, Part A of the Fellowship of the College of Family Physicians of South Africa (FCFP SA) examination. The series is aimed at helping family medicine registrars (and their supervisors) prepare for this examination.Keywords: family physicians; FCFP (SA) examination; family medicine registrars; postgraduate training; national exit examination; infectious diseases.

Mastering Your Fellowship: Part 4, 2022

The 'Mastering Your Fellowship' series provides examples of the question format encountered in the written and clinical examinations, Part A of the Fellowship of the College of Family Physicians of South Africa examination. The series is aimed at helping family medicine registrars prepare for this examination.

Choice of dental specialties among intending residents in a tertiary health institution in Nigeria

Objective: Various specialties exist in the field of dentistry and are geared towards meeting the specific dental health needs of society. This study was aimed at identifying factors influencing choice of dental specialties among intending residents.Methods: This was a questionnaire based cross-sectional study of all intending dental residents seeking postgraduate training in various specialties at the University of Benin Teaching hospital in September 2015. The questionnaire comprised of sociodemographics,specialty applied for and reasons for choice of specialty. The data collected was analyzed using IBM SPSS version 21.0.Results: A total of 82 respondents were recruited for the study with age range of 25- 44 years and a mean age of 32.43±4.04.There was a male: female ratio of 1:0.6. Oral and maxillofacial surgery had the highest number of applicants (30.5%) with the least number in Oral Medicine (2.4%). Age, gender and marital status had no significant association with choice of specialty.However, majority of males (88.0%) chose Oral and maxillofacial surgery compared to females (12.0%), while all the females (100%) chose to specialize in Periodontics. The most frequent reason for choice of specialty was "Personal desire". All the respondents who applied for Prosthetics and Periodontics felt they possessed the skills suited for the specialty while a significant number of respondents in Conservative Dentistry (85.7%), Paedodontics (80.0%) and Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery (72.0%) were influenced by the presence of mentors and role models in the specialty, hence their choice and this was statistically significant (p=0.049) . All the respondents who applied for Oral Pathology stated that their specialty choice afforded them with research opportunities and this was followed by 85.7% of those who applied for Community Dentistry. On the other hand, no respondent from Paedodontics felt their specialty choice afforded them with research opportunities. All the respondents across all specialties except two respondents from Community Dentistry stated that family pressure had no influence in their choice of specialty and this was also statistically significant. (p=0.009) Conclusion: There is inequality in quest for specialization in the different dental specialties in Nigeria. There is need for more role models and mentors across all specialties and modalities to increase the personal desire of prospective applicants

Research supervision: perceptions of postgraduate nursing students at a higher education institution in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Background. Scientific advancement; particularly in the area of information communication technology (ICT); challenges the mode of knowledge advancement at universities. Such challenges are especially evident in the area of postgraduate (PG) research supervision; particularly in the light of the changing students' demography; whereby there is a radical shift from full-time campus-based students to part-time students. This challenge is compounded by many countries not considering research competency as a requirement for PG supervision - the result of static and outdated curricula. Objective. To explore the perceptions of PG nursing students with regard to the research supervision process. Methods. A quantitative research study was conducted at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN); Durban; South Africa using non-convenience sampling. The PG Research Experience Survey questionnaire was adapted for the current study. Ethical clearance was obtained from UKZN's Ethics Committee.The population consisted of the PG coursework Master's nursing students who were registered for the research project module during 2012. A total of 56 students participated; with a response rate of 70%. Data were analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences 19 (SPSS 19) (IBM Corp.; USA). Results. The findings revealed that more than half of the respondents (66.2%; n=37) rated the level of support from research supervisors as moderate on a scale of low to high. The period of research supervision; mode of attendance and status within the university were identified as factors influencing the perceptions of support from research supervisors. Conclusion. This study recommends that; to improve the quality of research supervision; there is a need to include a research supervision module in the curriculum of nurse educators and to adopt online research supervision; underpinned by the extensive use of ICT to accommodate both part-timeand full-time PG students

Knowledge Attitudes and Practices of evidence based medicine among residence doctors in Sudan

Objectives: The aim of this cross-sectional study was to determine the awareness and attitude of hospital resident doctors towards evidence-based medicine (EBM) and their related educational needs. Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was performed on a randomly selected sample of 141 hospital resident doctors from teaching hospitals. Awareness and Attitude towards EBM; accessing to internet and Midlines and perceived barriers to practice EBM among participants were the main outcome measures. Results: 92.1strongly welcomed introduction and promotion of EBM in daily management of patients. About one-third of respondents (32.7) thought that the most appropriate way to move towards EBM was by seeking and applying EBM summaries. Most of the participants had access to internet (82) and those who were never heard or had a course on EBM were (85). Only 10who used EBM in 50to 100of their clinical practice. The major barriers to practicing EBM were no time due to patient overload (85); lack of libraries (65) limited resource (62) and lack of training (60). Most of the participants (79) agreed to be one of the requirements of full registration in Sudan Medical Council. Conclusions: Although there is a high support among doctors for the promotion of EBM; there is a deficit in knowledge and lack of skills of EBM. Hence; the time is suitable for planning and implementing an effective EBM educational programme for both undergraduate and postgraduate doctors. Evidence-based medicine has limitations; and more efforts need to be directed toward improving doctors' skills and access to evidence at the point of care