Perception of Saudi undergraduate medical students on telemedicine training and its implementation.

BACKGROUND: The use of telemedicine has increased considerably in healthcare delivery, especially during this time of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. It has, therefore, become necessary to train medical students to better equip them for this new means of healthcare delivery. The aim of the present study was to assess the perception of undergraduate medical students on telemedicine training. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted on a total of 521 undergraduate medical students studying in the Eastern Region of Saudi Arabia. Data were collected via a self-administered pretested questionnaire comprising two main sections: demographics and knowledge and opinions regarding telemedicine training. RESULTS: About 73% students think that the use of telemedicine for patient care will increase in the future, and 59.3% think that the medical students should be trained in telemedicine. Majority of the students (78%) opined that telemedicine training should be optional and 58% said it should be taught during the clinical phase of the undergraduate curriculum. The best telemedicine training course learning objectives medical students opined to be included were: telemedicine practical skills (70.2%), legal aspects of telemedicine practice (68.3%), and potential positive and/or negative use of telemedicine tools and methods (67.6%). Telemedicine skills students would like to learn how to effectively engage patients, knowledge about telemedicine regulations and the consequences of breaching them. CONCLUSION: Medical students are aware of the importance of incorporating telemedicine training into the medical curriculum. Training these students is vital to ensure their competence as physicians in their future clinical careers, that is make them a digitally health-literate future workforce.

The Effect of Various Patterns of Personal Listening Devices on Hearing Among University Students in Saudi Arabia.

Background: The long-term use of earphones at high volume levels is a major risk factor for noise-induced hearing loss. Aim: To compare the hearing of university students who use personal listening devices (PLDs) at extremes (upper & lower quartiles) with respect to a) Duration of use/day b) The number of years since use c) Volume level. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in the Department of Physiology, College of Medicine, at Imam Abdulrahman bin Faisal University (IAU), from September 2021 to April 2022. An online survey was distributed among IAU medical students on the subjects' patterns of earphone use. Forty participants volunteered to participate in the hearing tests: Pure Tone Audiometry (PTA), Tympanometry, and Transient Evoked Otoacoustic Emission (TEOAEs) at the ENT clinic of the King Fahd Hospital of the University (KFHU). Results: The pure tone audiometry and TEOAE showed no significant differences in the hearing thresholds/levels of participants in upper quartiles vs lower quartiles of both ears, in any of the PLD use pattern categories. However, in the TEOAE two observation were detected: a) Significantly lower amplitude in the upper quartile of the category "duration of PLD use/day" at a frequency of 1.0 kHz in the left ear (p-value 0.04) b) Significantly lower amplitude in the upper quartile of the category "volume of PLD use" at a frequency of 1.0 kHz in the left ear (p-value 0.03). Conclusion: The present findings suggest that hearing threshold/level and cochlear outer hair cells' functions do not differ significantly in the participants belonging to the upper and lower quartiles of PLD use pattern (volume level, duration of use/day, and the number of years since use).