Absenteeism among Saudi medical students

Background: Student absenteeism refers to the frequent absence from classes without any good reason and thought to be the primary concern in health profession education worldwide mainly in medical school

Methods and Material: This study is a cross sectional design conducted in 152 medical students of King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences [KSAU-HS], Saudi Arabia. A self-reported questionnaire was used to determine absenteeism behavior, contributing factors of absenteeism, and level of satisfaction of medical students towards the medical program of the university. Adapted questionnaire from Timmins and Kaliszer [9] was also utilized to examine factors of stress among medical students. Descriptive statistics, linear correlation and Pearson correlational coefficient utilizing SPSS v22 for the analysis of data

Results: A total of 143 [92.76%] participated in the study. 104 or 72 % were male, and 28% were female with mean age of 22.5 [+/- 2.02] and a mean GPA of 4.4 [+/- 0.4]. 77 [53.8%] of students were absent for 5 times or more in lectures/basic and clinical sciences sessions and clinical diagnostic sessions. These absences are mainly because of study [n=36, 25.2%] and course dissatisfaction [n=32, 22.4%]. However, only 3 [2.1%] who had an absence for 5 times or more in Problem Based Learning [PBL] sessions. These absences in PBL sessions are mainly because of sleep [n=11, 7.7%] and family commitments [n=10, 7.0%]. There is an inverse correlation between absenteeism and academic performance

Conclusion: Absenteeism has a negative impact on the academic performance of medical students

Stress among medical students during simulation training at King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences

Background: Simulation training is increasingly being used as a safe format to instruct students and trainees in different skills and procedures in the field of medicine. In this study, we recorded stress levels among medical students during simulation training for a lumbar puncture [LP] procedure performed on a mannequin and investigated the association between stress and performance

Methodology: This study was conducted on 39 fourth year female medical students. Students wore a galvanic skin response [GSR] sensor on their wrist before being asked to attempt the LP procedure on the mannequin on two separate occasions. Students' performance was assessed using a validated LP checklist on each attempt. Data were compared across all simulation attempts and for each student

Results: Collectively, mean wrist GSR levels increased from the mental rehearsal phase 0.31 mS +/- 0.40, during the first attempt 0.48 mS +/- 0.62 and continued to increase significantly [P = 0.007] during the second attempt 0.60 mS +/- 0.80. There were no significant differences [P = 0.32] between the checklist scores of the first and second attempts

Conclusion: The results of our study support the previous evidence that linked simulation training with emotional and physiological stress. Performing highly intense procedures such as LP is considered to be a potential source of stress. Our findings showed that there was a continuous increase in the level of stress associated with repeated attempts during the LP simulation that had no significant impact on clinical performance. As the practice of medicine involves exposure to a remarkable number of stressors and critical conditions, we emphasize the importance of training medical students in ways to cope more effectively with these situations

Low- versus high-fidelity simulations in teaching and assessing clinical skills

Simulation has been widely used in the education of healthcare workers. In simulation training, there is an approximation to reality in which trainees are supposed to react to problems or conditions as they would under genuine circumstances. The educational value of simulations has been determined to be valuable. Simulation has a significant impact on health care education across the disciplines and in both undergraduate and postgraduate studies. Recent development in technologies permits the reproduction of real-life scenarios with acceptable fidelity, thus profoundly enhancing the learning environment. However, the educational outcomes of high- versus low fidelity simulations remain controversial. This article aims to review the effectiveness of low- and high-fidelity simulations in teaching and assessing clinical skills