PBL-associated Stress in the First-year Unit-1 Medical Students at McMaster University

Abstract

This communication is the 4(superscript th) of a series of papers on McMaster students' perspectives on PBL in medical education(superscript [1-3]), with a special reference to stress associated with learning under PBL environment. Almost everywhere, attending advanced professional education such as law, medicine, and graduate studies(superscript [4-6]), especially for the first year, irrespet1ve of the nature of the curriculum, students are always taxed with a number of stressors. Some stressors are related to the change of physical environment, such as leaving home and adjusting oneself living in a new city. Some stressors are associated with changes in personal relationship, such as separating from and spending less time with love ones. Some stressors are due to financial constraints(superscript [7]) and some stressors are linked with matters affecting academic performance, such as increased workload, examinations, and other academic demand(superscript [8-10]). In this paper, members of a tutorial group of Prof. C.Y. Kwan express their sources of and coping strategies against stress in the study of medicine during the first 3 months in a PBL school. A senior pre-resident student who was also in Prof. Kwan's earlier group gave a different perspective on stress. A sabbaticant from Malaysia also gave her viewpoints in her apac1ty as an observer of this tutorial group.