Freshman Medical Students Research Articles

Ran domize d, Controlle d Trial of Vi deo Self-Instruction Versus Tra ditional CPR Training

Study objective: We conducted a prospective, randomized, controlled trial to test the hypothesis that a 34-minute video self-instruction (VSI) training program for adult CPR would yield comparable or better CPR performance than the current community standard, the American Heart Association Heartsaver course. Methods: Incoming freshman medical students were randomly assigned to VSI or the Heartsaver CPR course. Two to 6 months after training, we tested subjects to determine their ability to perform CPR in a simulated cardiac arrest setting. Blinded observers used explicit criteria to assess our primary outcome, CPR performance skill. In addition, we assessed secondary outcomes including sequential performance of individual skills, ventilation and chest compression characteristics, and written tests of CPR-related knowledge and attitudes. Results: VSI trainees displayed superior overall performance compared with traditional trainees. Twenty of 47 traditional trainees (43%) were judged not competent in their performance of CPR, compared with only 8 of 42 VSI trainees (19%; absolute difference, 24%; 95% confidence interval, 5% to 42%). Conclusion: In a group of incoming freshman medical students, we found that a half-hour of VSI resulted in superior overall CPR performance compared with that in traditional trainees. If validated by further research, VSI may provide a simple, quick, and inexpensive alternative to traditional CPR instruction for health care workers and, perhaps, the general population. [Todd KH, Braslow A, Brennan RT, Lowery DW, Cox RJ, Lipscomb LE, Kellermann AL: Randomized, controlled trial of video self-instruction versus traditional CPR training. Ann Emerg Med March 1998;31:364-369.]

Hospice and palliative care education in medical school: a module on the role of the physician in end-of-life care.

As a part of a program to integrate comprehensive palliative care education at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, a new teaching module was incorporated into the Introduction to Clinical Practice course for freshman medical students. The module is entitled "The Role and Responsibility of the Physician in Palliative and End-of-life Care: the Inter-disciplinary Team Approach." The teaching objectives are: 1) describe the value of palliative and end-of-life care as a professional practice; 2) delineate the barriers to physician competence in end-of-life care; 3) describe the concept of hospice and the multidisciplinary approach to the care of the terminally ill; 4) List the fundamental areas of knowledge and skills required for a physician to be an effective member of the palliative care team. The format of the module is a 30-minute didactic/interactive overview of the teaching objectives, followed by a 30-minute videotape "Care Beyond Cure," produced by the National Hospice Organization. The class then breaks up into small groups to discuss, over a two-hour period, a hypothetical illustrative case. The module was applied to the freshman medical student class in the 1995-1996 academic year. All freshmen were required to take it. Outcome evaluation utilized tools to assess attitude and cognitive domains. The attitude survey revealed that the majority of the students agreed that care of the dying could be a rewarding experience for the physician (72%) and that the case had helped them to understand the physician's role (93%). Overall, 82% wanted to learn more about the subject. Cognitive assessment tools indicated that the students satisfactorily understood the fundamental definitions of palliative care and hospice.

Development and Evaluation of an Early Exposure Training Program for Freshman Medical Students

Development and Evaluation of an Early Exposure Training Program for Freshman Medical Students

Prediction of medical student achievement by the utilization of personality characteristics and personal values.

The study measured personality characteristics and personal values and their usefulness in predicting achievement for 89 freshman medical students at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) Form F and The Values Scale by Nevill and Super were used to predict cumulative grade point average. Implications were that noncognitive variables may be predictive of cognitive performance. The relationship of personality preferences to achievement suggests a method of identifying learning patterns and teaching styles which could benefit medical students in preclinical and clinical years.

Substance Abuse in Freshmen Medical Students over Time

This study assessed the extent of alcohol use among six classes of freshman medical students over an 8-year period to provide actuarial feedback about drinking patterns to these students. A total of 278 freshman medical students was anonymously surveyed in class using the Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test (MAST). Students were given subsequent group feedback about these data with ample time for discussion. Signs of clinical detection and community resources were highlighted. Of all students 11.7% were nondrinkers, 51% were nonproblematic drinkers, 7% were borderline, 23% were 80% likely to be alcoholic, and 7% were 100% likely to be alcoholic based on the MAST score. No time trends were evident in substance use patterns. The 13-item Short MAST (SMAST) compared to the MAST had a sensitivity of 52% and a specificity of 98%. The need for better education, detection, and intervention regarding alcohol abuse among medical students was evident. Fortunately, no time trends are evident in this school's freshmen classes in contrast to national trends in college students. Teaching about problem drinking based on the administration of the MAST and from drinking norms of the class appears to increase awareness, relevance, and concern about alcohol abuse among freshmen medical students.

The process of coping with a gross anatomy exam during the first year of medical school

A total of 42 freshman medical students were evaluated before a major exam, after the exam and before grades were announced and after grades were announced. They completed measures relating to mood, emotions, coping, social support and stakes. Significant time and academic performance differences were found in many domains.

Psychological Assessment Using Simulations with Unrestricted Natural Language Input

Five computerized role-playing scenarios, which accept unrestricted natural language input, were developed and administered to seventy-two freshman medical students. The scenarios, written in CASIP, measured and automatically scored each response on five psychological dimensions: Social skills, level of frustration, submissiveness, combativeness, and negotiative ability. The programmed scenarios also monitored nonverbal dimensions, which may reflect the emotional state of the testee. These included: The time it took to start an answer; the time spent reviewing the answer; the lengths of answers and of the words used. The testees behaved significantly different in handling the different role-playing scenarios. While no significant correlations were found between the psychological dimensions expressed in the different scenarios, the tests identified individual testees who displayed a pattern of extremes of psychological behavior.

A compact course in basic computer skills for freshman medical students.

A compact course in basic computer skills for freshman medical students.

The prevalence of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa among freshman medical college students in China

This paper reports the results of a questionnaire survey administered to 509 Chinese college freshman (108 males, 401 females), in Chongqing and Shanghai. The response rate was 700%. Questions were constructed to elicit information which would allow identification of those respondents who would meet domestic (Chinese), DSM-III and DSM-III-R requirements for anorexia nervosa and bulimia. 1.1 % of the student population (1.7 % of females) met domestic and DSM-Ill-R for bulimia and I .3% of the student population (1.8% of males 1.2% of females) met DSM-Ill criteria for bulimia; however, none were binge eating and purging on a regular basis and none met diagnostic criteria for anorexia nervosa. © 1992 by /John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Interactive Teaching, Medical Students, and Substance Abuse

The authors present an innovative approach for providing freshman and sophomore medical students with their initial exposure to the problems of alcohol and other drug abuse. Students in small interactive group seminars teach each other about the major areas of substance abuse: treatment, prevention/education, research, and law enforcement. They are aided by group moderators, by resource professionals, and by recovery teachers as they make field trips, attend 12-step meetings, and get background material. They utilize audiovisuals, role-plays, and programmed patients in a report/debate format. Effects of this seminar on their attitudes have been measured and are presented.

Successful Modification of Medical Students’ Cardiovascular Risk Factors

Modifying identified risk factors for cardiovascular disease should change an individual's risk. Educational interventions might change behavior to modify some risk factors. To evaluate this possibility, we evaluated the health and fitness status of freshman medical students at the University of Utah (n = 89) in 1983 and determined their cardiovascular risk factors. During a preventive cardiology course later that year, students received their results. We reevaluated the students during their senior year using the same method. For both years, we obtained complete data on 77 (87%) of the eligible students. As freshmen 83% of these students had at least one modifiable risk factor, compared with 62% with a risk as seniors. The number of reevaluated students with low levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, low estimations of aerobic capacity, or both, decreased significantly (P = .009 and P = .0008, respectively). The preventive cardiology educational intervention may have changed behavior and improved cardiovascular risk factors.

Dimensions of Alexithymia and Their Relationships to Anxiety and Depression

Investigators have suggested that alexithymia is a multidimensional construct and that it is responsive to situational stressors. We tested these hypotheses in a sample of 110 freshman medical students. We conducted factor analyses on the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and the state portion of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) and then used LISREL to examine the relationships among the various factors. The results indicated that the TAS consists of several independent dimensions and that the dimensions associated with difficulties identifying and communicating feelings are positively related to depression and anxiety. Thus, the evidence now affirms that alexithymia (as measured by the TAS) is multidimensional and that certain dimensions are state dependent.

Being just a husband is no fun.

One of our stalwarts on the Editorial Board has had a unique experience in the last few years; he has been a transcontinental spouse. In one of his two lives, as he so aptly describes, he has learned how the "other half" feels to be "the spouse of . . .". His article has currency, not only for the experience itself and its reflection of some marriages today, but because such experience will become commonplace in the future. More and more women have entered medicine and other professional careers and are achieving hierarchical status within their chosen fields. Their male spouses will now have to cope, as our female spouses have for decades, with a quite different role than that of the stereotypic dominant male, so prominent in American conception. My wife, Shirley, and I attended a retreat for first-year freshman medical students not too many years ago. I was privileged to be a member of the small break-out group that consisted of spouses and so-called significant others of the medical students. To my amazement and education, the majority were male (correspondingly, most of the students attending the retreat were female), and the attitudes displayed echoed what I had heard female spouses of the faculty saying for years. For example, one male businessman said, "Do you mean that if she wants to take a residency in Seattle, I'd have to give up my business and follow her? . . . Hell, no!" Perhaps he would be like Dr Stiehm and conduct a Los Angeles-Tucson-to-Seattle marriage. Another complained, "At every party we go to, all they talk about is medicine! Don't they have any other interests?" And on through the day. On reflection, Shirley and I realized that medical marriages are in for some surprises in the future. Dr Stiehm's experience is just the forerunner of many like it in the future. We will have to find new ways to make relationships work and to be sustained over the years. Men will have to learn to be secondary in interest to friends and colleagues of their successful female spouses. Men will have to learn to tolerate highly technical cocktail-party and dinner-party talk outside their sphere of knowledge, and interest, and scope. We are truly in for a brave new tomorrow. Dr Stiehm's firsthand description will be recognized by many today as pertinent and will be a blueprint for the future. May all have the wisdom and humor of Judy and Dick Stiehm!

The preparedness of freshman medical students for taking sexual histories.

With recent epidemics of sexually transmitted diseases, it is increasingly important for medical students to be well prepared to take sexual histories. The authors studied this issue through a self-administered questionnaire completed by first-year medical students at two western U.S. medical schools (response rate 87%). Students who were better prepared (i.e., more knowledgeable, more comfortable, more appropriate attitudes) had more personal sexual experience and were more likely to have spoken with either a physician or a patient about a personal sexual concern. Different student characteristics were associated with different domains of preparation for taking a sexual history (e.g., knowledge v.s. attitudes). The educational implications of these findings are discussed.

Relationship of hassles, uplifts, and life events to psychological well-being of freshman medical students.

Hassles, uplifts, and life events were related to psychological well-being with a representative sample of 55 (of 179) freshman medical students. Students were sent measures of hassles, uplifts, and affect-moods measures for 9 consecutive months and a measure of life stress at the beginning and middle of the school year. The hassles measure was found to be a better predictor of concurrent and subsequent negative mood than was the life stress measure, whereas life stress was found to be a better predictor of subsequent positive mood than hassles. On the whole, uplifts were unrelated to mood. The relationship between life stress and hassles was also investigated. The implications of the findings for future stress and health outcome research are discussed.

Development of information retrieval skills for freshman medical students.

Development of information retrieval skills for freshman medical students.

Medical students' Edwards Personal Preference Schedule norms.

Three consecutive classes of freshman medical students completed the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule; results were compared to published norms for male and female college students. 171 male medical students scored significantly lower on the traits of Order, Exhibition, and Dominance and were higher on Affiliation, Succorance, Nurturance, and Heterosexuality. 51 female medical students scored significantly lower on the traits of Exhibition, Affiliation, and Abasement; they were higher on Achievement, Succorance, and Nurturance.

Textbook of Medical Physiology

Dr Arthur C. Guyton'sTextbook of Medical Physiologyis considered by many freshman medical students to be the text that meets all their needs in studying and learning the essentials in human physiology. The seventh edition is very similar to the sixth edition. The topic sequence is similar, as well as most of the tables and figures. Even the numbers of the different chapters are identical to those of the previous edition. In some instances, various topics have been rearranged within a chapter for didactic reasons. For example, in the presentation of the renal mechanism for controlling glomerular filtration and excretion and dilution in chapter 35 in the seventh edition, autoregulation of glomerular filtration and blood flow are the first topics discussed, whereas in the sixth edition these topics are at the end of the chapter. The only new addition is the last section, which deals with sports physiology.

Hassles and uplifts during the freshman year of medical school.

New Hassles and Uplifts Scales were administered monthly for 9 mo. to a representative sample of 55 (of 180) freshman medical students. Hassles most frequently reported related to academic-social concerns and uplifts to hedonic concerns. No significant sex differences were found.

Model for quantifying the drug involvement of medical students.

We have applied a two-parameter normal item-response model to analyze data on "drugs ever used" by freshman medical students, then used the result to predict their subsequent drug use patterns over the first 18 months of medical school. Our results provide strong evidence for the existence of a single latent dimension of "drug involvement," and they demonstrate that a student's initial position on this dimension predicts subsequent drug use well. The model applies to male and female students equally well, suggesting the dimension is not sex specific. Students' drug use is cumulative in the sense that an individual tends to add new drugs to all previous drugs, rather than "graduating" from a previous to a new drug, as he/she becomes more "drug involved." Greater "drug involvement" is also associated with more frequent use of most drug categories.