Staff Reflection on the Effectiveness of Whatsapp Usage for Organizational Communication: a Study in a Private Malaysian Medical School

@#Introduction: Recently mobile communication technology had tremendous advances and became the priority for most of the users with some opponent opinions that highlight the accountability and the privacy issues in using these messaging applications. WhatsApp is scored to be the first top used messaging application worldwide that is used in 180 countries by about 1.5 billion population. This research aims to determine the staff reflections regarding the WhatsApp usage for organizational communication. Methods: This study is implied among the staff at the medical and health life science cluster, Management and Science University (MSU), Malaysia. A questionnaire was distributed to all the staff through an online google form. Responses were analysed by the ‘Statistical Package for Social Sciences’ (SPSS) Version 24.0. Results: Results showed that all the staff responded (100%) are using WhatsApp for organizational communication with variable degrees of satisfaction; 8.1% are extremely satisfied, 61.3 % are satisfied, 12.9% are not satisfied and 16.1 % are extremely not satisfied. Their level of satisfaction is significantly affected by the respondent’s age, benefit of usage, and the time of messaging. Conclusion: To ensure effectiveness of communication through WhatsApp, it should be through official groups and the organization should put specific announced rules for the time of usage and the content of messages to be posted to all members.

Training standardized patients for undergraduate Psychiatry examinations: experience of a Malaysian university

Simulated/ standardized patients (SPs) have become one of the significant components in today’s medical education and students’ assessment. Some differences exist in the training method of SPs for psychiatry examinations compared to other medical disciplines. This brief report highlights the challenges encountered in the training process and methods to overcome those challenges. A wellstructured, intensive training remains as one of the most important factors in ensuring standardization of SPs for psychiatric examinations.

Perception on Interprofessional Learning Among Health Science Undergraduate Students of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia / Jurnal Sains Kesihatan Malaysia

Interprofesion learning (IPL) occurs when students from two or more different professionals study with and learn about different professions. IPL is believed to enhance the collaboration level within the different profession after graduated. The objective of this research is to compare perception levels among the respondents coming from eleven different professions including Medical, Nursing, Dentistry, Pharmacy, Occupational Therapy, Dietetics, Audiology, Speech Science, Physiotherapy, Optometry and Diagnostic Imaging & Radiotherapy. Each respondent were selected randomly representing each year of study for each profession. They were required to fi ll up the survey form provided. 330 survey forms were returned instead of 367 distributed copies or 90% from overall surveys. Using one-way ANOVA analysis, all professions indicate same level of perception in knowledge subscale (p = 0.11), the practice of teamwork and cooperation (p = 0.23) and various methods to start the IPL (p = 0.61). However, for professional identity subscales and interprofession educational preparation the value was (p < 0.05). Post-hoc Turkey test, indicated Physiotherapy students had a higher average score (M = 4.35 ± 0.54) compared to Speech Science (M = 3.75 ± 0.59) in professional identity subscale whereas in students preparation subscale for interprofession education, only Physiotherapy students had higher score (M = 4.15 ± 0.82) in comparison to Diagnostic Imaging & Radiotherapy (M = 3.25 ± 0.83). Besides, independent T test showed the students were in favour of having IPL in early year of education with the average score (M = 3.53 ± 1.029) for year one and year two compared to year three to fi ve (M = 3.34 ± 1.089). The result form this research shows that the students have a positive perception towards IPL based on the average values not more than 3.0.

UKM Medical Graduates’ Perception of their Communication Skills during Housemanship

The art of talking to patients and their relatives does not come naturally to most of us and the ability to put oneself in the patients’ predicament is difficult particularly for the young doctors. To identify the communication abilities of the young doctors, a cross sectional study was carried out on 32 house officers who graduated from UKM in 2004 during their house jobs at different hospitals in Malaysia. A standardized questionnaire was used to collect the data. Fifty nine percent respondents claimed that they had communicated very well with patients while 69% with support staff and 88% with peers. On the other hand 38% and 41% of the respondents claimed they communicated very well with their superiors and families of patients. Only 22% of the graduates’ skills of communication in breaking bad news were very well, while 50% and 81% were very well in counselling patients and taking consent for procedures. Curriculum planners need to emphasize the importance of developing good communication skills in all aspects for the future doctors.