Medical Professionalism and culturally sensitive issues: Thinking ahead for the future medical graduates.

Over the past decade much attention has been focussed on medical professionalism. However, the main dilemma in Pakistan is that both the teachers and the students are too occupied in covering the cognitive knowledge that they are unable to spare time to practice the necessary skills, behaviour, and attitude. In order to understand how culture affects professionalism, one must first have a clear understanding of Pakistani culture. According to our best educated guess, we have suggested a few teaching methods which can assist in teaching culturally sensitive issues. Despite our suggestions, one cannot ignore the limitations in terms of constantly changing culture, difficulty in introducing unfamiliar teaching strategies and the ample time required.

Correlation between stress scores and self-regulated learning perception scores in Pakistani students.

OBJECTIVE: To find out the correlation between levels of stress and self-regulated learning skills in medical students. METHODS: The quantitative correlational study was conducted in January 2018 at the University College of Medicine and Dentistry, Lahore, Pakistan, and comprised regular medical students enrolled in first to fifth year. Data was collected using Perceived stress scale-14 and Self-regulated learning perception scale questionnaires to identify the levels of stress and self-regulated learning skills. Data was collected at one point of time and analysed using SPSS 25. RESULTS: Of the 350 students approached, 295(84%) filled in the questionnaire. Of them, 118(62.4%) were females and 111(37.6%) were males. No significant differences were found between the scores of male and female students (p>0.05). There was a moderate positive correlation between stress and self-regulated learning skills (p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Self-regulated learning skills can play a vital role in coping with stress and identifying a goal.

Promoting self-regulated learning skills in medical students is the need of time.

OBJECTIVES: Currently, there is a need to develop safe and competent medical graduates. Research reveals that the promotion of learning skills enhances lifelong experience. The objective of this study is to measure medical students' aptitude in four essential components of self-regulation: planning, monitoring, control, and reflection. METHODS: This cross-sectional study recruited 96 MBBS students using a snowball sampling technique. The Internet link to the online survey, designed on Google forms, was shared through Facebook, WhatsApp, and e-mail. A self-regulation questionnaire comprising 22 items was administered to all participants, and the collected data were analysed using SPSS version 20. RESULTS: Among the respondents, 50 (52.1%) women and 46 (47.9%) men completed the survey. The response rate was 78% (96 out of 123). The mean age of the respondents was 22.5 years. The mean self-regulation score was found to be 71.56 ± 11.19. Among self-regulation components, the lowest score was found for planning, with an average value of 27.01 ± 1.33, and the highest average value was noticed for reflection, 34.08 ± 1.30. CONCLUSIONS: Our conclusions are as follows: although we have included the traits of seven-star doctors in our mission and vision statement, we could not identify the strategies to acquire these traits. One of the strategies involves promoting self-regulation in our students through various teaching methodologies.