ABSTRACT
Background: Culture is an essential component that governs all aspects of human behavior. Superstition is an irrational belief observed in almost all cultures. It is linked to one or more factors like supernatural powers, good luck, bad omen, fiction, illegitimate activity, absurd narration, folk tales, or practice without any rational basis. Methods: A cross-sectional social experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of cultural appropriation as a tool to enhance medical knowledge acquisition and attitudinal development in medical education. The experiment was designed to target a non-medical population. Four superstition-oriented videos were developed with 20 scientific pieces of information related to forensic medicine. A data collection sheet was developed on Microsoft form with 16 questions was distributed on the participants. Results: Out of the 986 participants, 763 (77.5%) watched the whole set of videos. About 55-95% of responders demonstrated knowledge acquisition of all the questions. There was a statistically significant difference between those who watched the videos and those who did not. When participants were asked about the most important information they remember from the videos, their answers fell into two main categories; information related to core scientific knowledge (80% of participants) and information not related to the core knowledge (16% of respondents). The top three areas for the reasons why people wanted to watch the videos were curiosity, knowledge, and career. A change in attitudes was reported among the participants where 80% of responders demonstrated curiosity to know more about this world, 46% responders reported developing more respect for the forensic physician and 43% revealed their ignorance about this great hidden world. Conclusion: Cultural appropriation could be a needed strategy to accommodate for upscale in education. Learners might validate that learning happens through a door that adopts not only honours their culture and adapts to it.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Medical education is facing great challenges and uncertainties amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: This article aims to provide tips that can provide a guide for medical education leaders to coordinate crisis management referring to the Egyptian context. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This work was done using a reflection on the COVID-19 response by Egyptian universities and analysis of such responses. RESULTS: Medical Education Institutions are required to build a taskforce team for crisis management. These should be committed to supporting sudden online education transition, academic support, and the psychological well-being of students, staff members, health care professionals, paramedics, and faculty administration. As the situation evolves, the taskforce has to monitor the challenges and provide appropriate plans, guidance, and solutions. Leaders in medical education have a crucial role in response to the pandemic crisis in securing a successful educational process while ensuring the mental and psychological well-being of the stakeholders. CONCLUSION: Crisis management is the skill of the future and more investment needs to be placed in designing crisis response and in enabling universities to accommodate this response.
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: As soon as the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic, many higher education facilities had to change their educational and teaching strategies to cope with the lockdown. Some medical schools decided to rely on online teaching while others depended on students' self-learning abilities. Methods of assessment also changed as some medical schools implemented pass/fail exams, online examinations, and research projects while others postponed their final exams. In Egypt, medical schools started delivering their lectures online and changed the assessment criteria of the preclinical academic years to depend mainly on research and online exams while postponed the clinical rotations and final exams of the clinical years. AIM: This study assesses medical students' awareness of the current situation regarding the safety guidelines and their satisfaction with the solutions provided by their schools for the plans to continue their learning and the new assessment methods and criteria. METHODOLOGY: The method used for data collection is an online survey filled by medical students from around Egypt. Moreover, data were statistically analyzed using IBM statistical package SPSS for doing a Chi-squared test on two variables. RESULTS: After collecting the data and analyzing responses, we found that 66.2% of students who answered the survey do not think that the safety measures taken by their universities after the return back will be enough. CONCLUSION: This shows that the basic knowledge of COVID-19 among medical students is average and there is a need to start programs for infection control practices against COVID-19 for all medical students and professionals.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: The gathered archeopathological evidence has confirmed that Schistosomiasis has been endemic in Ancient Egypt for over 500 decades. The association between Schistosoma hematobium and increase bladder cancer risk is also well acknowledged. However, over the years, there is a proved changing pattern of bladder cancer that needs to be investigated. AIM: We aim to discuss the truths and myths about bladder cancer and its association with Schistosomiasis in Egypt. METHODS: A cross-sectional, case-control study was performed to collect recent data on the topic. RESULTS: Of the reported cancer cases, 79.3% were transitional cell carcinoma (TCC), an additional 6% showed associated squamous features. Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) constituted only 13.8% of cancer cases. Schistosomiasis was histologically confirmed in 19 cancer cases, only one was SCC. The relative frequency of TCC is increasing, while SCC is decreasing. There is no evidence that this pattern is related to smoking or environmental factors, as the incidence of lung cancer, is not proportionately increasing. CONCLUSION: The old concept that Schistosomiasis is associated with SCC should be revaluated as most cases are associated with TCC. Relying on the histopathology for confirmation of Schistosomiasis in our research studies appears to be non-accurate and leads to irrelevant results.
