Preparedness of Phase 1 MBBS Students for Self-directed Learning Process

Self-directed learning is important for MBBS students to prepare themselves as lifelong learner. But a “spoonfed” school student needs to be sufficiently prepared to learn by SDL. In this study, the ability of the students to learn by SDL is measured along with evaluation of the reliability of as “Self-Directed Learning Instrument” (SDLI) as measuring tool. All willing students of the 1st phase MBBS curriculum (Batch 2020-21) were given a 20-item questionnaire known as “Self-directed Learning Instrument” (SDLI) to evaluate their learning abilities by SDL. A higher level of SDL is indicated by a higher score. A total of 247 students were included in the study. The result shows that students have poorest ability in Planning and Implementation domain (Mean: 3.9, variance: 0.26) whereas they are strongly motivated (Mean:4.3, variance: 0.37). SDLI score revealed that only 6 students need special care from faculties. Some (n = 81) needed observation and monitoring whereas majority of students (160, 64.8%) were supposed to be able to learn of their own. The method was found to be reliable as Cronbach’s alpha for all domains were over 0.70. The students with poor ability to learn by themselves can be identified in the very beginning of the session who can be given special attention and facilitated to grow as lifelong learner.

Effectiveness of Self-directed Learning to Teach Biochemistry in Phase 1 MBBS Students

The effectiveness of introducing Self-directed Learning (SDL) activity in teaching Biochemistry in Phase 1 MBBS Students was studied by measuring learning gain before and after SDL session. The SDL sessions were conducted among 3 groups of Students (Group A, n = 88; group B, n = 66 and Group C, n = 46; Total, n = 200) according to their learning needs. SDL was found to improve test scores significantly in all three groups. The perception of the Undergraduate Medical Students on SDL was also collated in this study by close ended question (in Likert scale) and open-ended questions. Perception analysis showed that majority of the Students agreed that SDL sessions are beneficial and interesting. However, thematic analysis showed that most of the Students considered SDL to be more time consuming. The questions were found to be reliable in present setting by calculating Cronbach’s alpha coefficient (0.893). It seems to be essential to find out the topics where students need special guidance and which topics will be chosen for SDL.

The silent burden of anemia in school age children: A community based study in West Bengal.

Background: Under nutrition and anemia are common co-morbidities in school age children. Due to transition in dietary habits in developing countries, a paradoxical finding of coexistence of anemia and normal/over nutrition is also a cause of concern. Objective:> T o assess the nutritional status and prevalence of anemia among school age children (6 - 16 years) residing in rural and urban areas of a district of West Bengal and also to find out the association between weight status, measured as Body Mass Index(BMI) and anemia. Materials and Methods: Age, height & weight were measured in 86 rural and 86 urban school age (6 -16 years) children in rural and urban field practice areas of Midnapore Medical College. Their blood was estimated for haemoglobin concentration. Results: Overall prevalence of anemia was 80.2%, and not significantly different between the rural (83.7%) and urban (76.7%) participants and across the genders both in rural (86.4% versus 80.9%) and urban (85.7% versus 72.4%) areas. Thinness was observed to be higher in urban area (48.8% versus 41.9%). However, severe thinness was higher in rural area (18.5% versus 13.9%). Significantly, higher proportion of boys revealed severely low BMI compared to girls in both rural (33.3% versus 4.5%) and urban (17.2% versus 7.1%) areas with no significant differences between the prevalence of anemia across the grades of underweight and normal nutritional status. Conclusions: Poor nutritional status and anemia are still, taking heavy toll and new program strategies are needed, particularly those that improve the overall nutrition status of children.

Development and application of a new efficient and sensitive multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in diagnosis of leprosy.

India contributes about 80% of the global leprosy case load including case of fresh infection and reinfection. Due to lack of gold standard, diagnosis is done mainly based on routine clinical signs and symptoms, smear and histopathological evidences. There is a lot of lacunae in early confirmatory diagnosis in terms of sensitivity and specificity, especially in paucibacillary tuberculoid type. Moreover, the classification of different classes of leprosy is very important for selection of proper therapeutic schedule. Hence this study was undertaken to develop a multiplex polymerase chain reaction for the diagnosis and strain differentiation of M leprae. A multiplex polymerase chain reaction was developed using the primers R1 and R2 (a) amplifying 372bp DNA target from a repetitive sequence of M leprae and this repetitive sequence (372bp) that was used as a target DNA for amplification was reported to be specific for M leprae was not present in 20 mycobacterium species other than M leprae and primers TTCA and TTCB (b) amplifying (201bp) DNA target of variable sizes from the regions flanking TTC repeats of M leprae genome. This multiplex polymerase chain reacton developed in our laboratory revealed that the number of repeats at each locus might be variable among M leprae but they are found mostly in multibacillary (as the bacterial load is higher in multibacillary) type.

Prevalence of hypothyroidism and importance of cholesterol estimation in patients suffering from major depressive disorder.

The coexistence of hypothroidism and depression is already reported and both of these conditions are known to share some common clinical symptoms. Serum cholesterol level is known to be altered in either condition considered separately. But, no report is obtained regarding serum cholesterol level when both the conditions coexist. In this study, 78 patients (61 females and 17 males, age ranged 19 to 67 years) suffering from major depressive disorder were included. Serum T3, T4, TSH and cholesterol levels were estimated in all of them. Sixty-two patients were found to be euthyroid and 16 patients (11 females, 5 males) were found to be hypothyroid. Among female patients, 6 had subclinical hypothyroidism and 5 had overt hypothyroidism. Among male patients 3 had subclinical hypothyroidism and 2 had overt hypothyroidism. The overall prevalence of hypothyroidism in major depressive disorder was estimated as 20.5%. Mean serum cholesterol level in 62 euthyroid patients was found to be 150.9% +/- 16 mg% and that of 16 hypothyroid patients to be 190.7 +/- 12 mg% showing a significant difference (p < 0.01). Thus estimation of cholesterol in major depressive disorder patients may give an idea regarding their thyroid status and vice-versa.