An online survey data in senior high school students and their parents in China during the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019.

The dataset presents the raw data collected through an online survey of senior high school students and their parents from 24 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions (96 cities) of China. We conducted the online survey using electronic self-administered questionnaires designed as student-version and parent-version during 26th February and 4th March of 2020. The questionnaires were designed using the online survey tool Sojump (Shanghai Information Co.), and released through WeChat platform (Tencent Corp) following principals-head teachers-students/parents approach. All the students and the parents were asked to answer the questions voluntarily and anonymously after reading informed consent at the fore page of the questionnaires. The information collected from students included: 1) demographic characteristics, including sex, date of birth, name of high school, academic year, and self-evaluated performance level; 2) educational levels and occupations of parents; 3) degree preferences, including the willingness to learn medicine (prior and post COVID-19 outbreak), preferred medical career (clinician, public health practitioner, pharmacist, nurse or others), and main motivations for selecting or unselecting medical study; 4) infection of COVID-19 in acquaintances; 5) health literacy level on infectious diseases assessed using the Infectious Disease-specific Health Literacy Scale (IDSHL), and 6) anxiety level evaluated using the Chinese version of the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Screener (GAD-7). Information collected from parents included sex of their children and name of high school attended by their children, as well as their own educational level, occupation, anxiety symptoms, attitude toward their children's studying medicine, and main reasons for supportive or unsupportive attitudes, which were similar to the main motivations or de-motivations for medical study listed in the student-version questionnaire. Date and time for completion of the questionnaire were auto-recorded by the Sojump system. The dataset was established at the early stage of pandemic of COVID-19, and is valuable for understanding the instant psychological impacts of the outbreak of an emerging fatal infectious disease on senior high school students and their patents, and can provide evidence for policymakers on mental health intervention and medical education in China. The data are provided with this article.

COVID-19 outbreak improves attractiveness of medical careers in Chinese senior high school students.

BACKGROUND: The shortage of healthcare workers is becoming a serious global problem. The underlying reasons may be specific to the healthcare system in each country. Over the past decade, medicine has become an increasingly unpopular profession in China due to the heavy workload, long-term training, and inherent risks. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has placed the life-saving roles of healthcare professionals under the spotlight. This public health crisis may have a profound impact on career choices in Chinese population. METHODS: We conducted a questionnaire-based online survey among 21,085 senior high school students and 21,009 parents from 24 provinces (or municipalities) of China. We investigated the change of interest in medical study due to the outbreak of COVID-19 and the potential motivational factors based on the expectancy-value theory framework. Pearson correlation analysis was used to assess the correlation of static or dynamic interest in medical career pursuit with the reported number of COVID-19 cases. Logistic regression model was adopted to analyze the main factors associated with students' choices. RESULTS: We observed an increased preference for medical study post the outbreak of COVID-19 in both students (17.5 to 29.6%) and parents (37.1 to 47.3%). Attainment value was found to be the main reason for the choice among students, with the contribution to society rated as the top motivation. On the other hand, the predominant demotivation in high school students was lack of interest, followed by concerns regarding violence against doctors, heavy workload, long-term training and heavy responsibility as a doctor. Additionally, students who were female, in the resit of final year, had highly educated parents and outside of Hubei province were significantly associated with a keen interest in pursuing medical study. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first multi-center cross-sectional study exploring the positive change and motivations of students' preferences in medical study due to the outbreak of COVID-19. Our results may help medical educators, researchers and policymakers to restructure medical education to make it more appealing to high school students, particularly, to develop a more supportive social and working environment for medical professionals to maintain the observed enhanced enthusiasm.

Shortage of Physicians: A Critical Review.

A recent report of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) points out an insufficient number of physicians in Europe. The issue seems especially relevant in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this review, based on papers found in the PubMed database, we drew on the available information on the aspects of medical education and terms and rate of employment of physicians to submit potential solutions of how to increase the availability of physicians in Europe. We offer the following improvements in tackling the issue: (i) standardization of the method of verification of the number of physicians in practice for a meaningful comparison between European states; (ii) managerial reorganization of medical education to increase the flexibility of teaching; (iii) education shortening, e.g., to 4 years, for nurses, paramedics, and the like; (iv) circumscription of unnecessary health records and the use of artificial intelligence to streamline the recording system to ease the burden on the medical staff.