Sixth-year Medical Students Research Articles

The prevalence of latex allergy in sixth-year medical students: assessment of knowledge, risk, and attitudes about future specialty direction

In the prevention of latex allergy, knowledge levels and risk determination for latex allergy of medical students gain importance. To evaluate the latex allergy knowledge levels of sixth-year medical students and their latex allergy risk. Students completed a questionnaire that assessed basic knowledge of latex allergy and that evaluated latex-related symptoms and latex exposure. The specialty branch students were going to choose in the Medical Specialty Examination was also asked. Skin prick tests (SPTs) with latex and inhalant allergens and patch tests with latex-related products were then performed. Finally, students were asked again about any changes in branch selection after learning their individual risks. Two hundred twenty sixth-year students were enrolled. Forty-four percent of the students gave the right answer for description of latex. Correct identification of at least 1 latex-related product used outside and inside hospitals was 55.5% and 95.5%, respectively. The prevalence of latex sensitization was 4.4% according to SPT results. The positivity of SPT to any inhalant allergen was 35% (n = 64). None of the students changed their mind about their specialty branch after learning their latex allergy risk. Last-year medical students have a remarkably low latex allergy knowledge level, which imposes a serious professional risk. Training strategies based on the benefit to this risk group and reevaluation are strongly recommended before graduation from medical school.

Attitudes toward active euthanasia among medical students at two German universities

There has been an ongoing debate about a legalisation of active euthanasia (AE) in Germany. Palliative care education in German medical schools seeks to foster and cultivate a negative attitude toward AE, but little is known about its effectiveness in this respect. The aim of this study was to assess attitudes toward AE among students with and without palliative medicine tuition (PMT). The link to an anonymised online questionnaire was sent out to 1,092 third, fifth and sixth year medical students (YMS) in August-November 2006 at two German universities: university one (U1) with compulsory and additional optional PMT and university two (U2) without any PMT. Thirteen questions addressed active, passive or indirect euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (statistic: mean +/- SD (range), Wilcoxon, Whitney U Test, significance p < 0.05). Response rate was 17.5%; 59.2% of the questionnaires were returned from U1 and 40.8% from U2; 28.3% of the students were male. Whereas 50% of third YMS at U1 and 36.7% at U2 favoured a legalisation of AE, this was true for 22.4% sixth YMS at U1 and 35.7% at U2. At U1, the number of students who would want to make use of AE for themselves decreased considerably (70%-44.9%) but less at U2; main reasons were 'unbearable suffering' and 'circumstances that lack dignity'. Of all students, 21.1% at U1 and 37.2% at U2 could imagine to perform AE in patients, even though 72.6% at U1 and 78.2% at U2 think its legalisation would promote misuse. The high proportion of pro-AE attitudes gives reason to reconsider both 'standard' and palliative medicine tuition for medical students.

Rural internships for final year students: clinical experience, education and workforce

The James Cook University School of Medicine is the only complete medical school in northern Australia, and it has a mission to prepare graduates to meet the unique needs of the region with a particular emphasis on rural, remote, Indigenous and tropical health. Eight-week 'rural internships' have been undertaken by all sixth-year medical students at James Cook University since 2005. Each student had previously completed at least 12 weeks of structured rural placements in years 2 and 4, as well as other core teaching in rural health including the year 2 subject, 'Rural, Remote, Indigenous and Tropical Health'. Students worked in rural hospitals across northern Australia developing and practising clinical skills under the supervision of senior staff. Students undertook full-time inpatient and outpatient responsibilities under supervision, being rostered for after-hours work with appropriate support. Assessment involved a learning portfolio, including multi-source feedback from peers, supervisors and patients, and a population health project and a telephone referral exercise. This article describes the development, implementation and assessment of the first years of the program, from 2005 to 2007. Evaluation included student questionnaires, site visits and interviews, and follow-up teleconferences with preceptors. The rural internship provides senior medical students with valuable experience by active participation in the healthcare team. Students reported a rich and varied clinical experience. Students accept limited supervised responsibility and further their ability and confidence to undertake the role of the intern. Importantly, they proved not to be a burden to the system. This rotation therefore appears to meet educational needs without compromising the local workforce (and indeed may add to it). Students felt welcomed by their communities and enjoyed the social and cultural aspects of their attachment, as well as the clinical aspects and the opportunity to further their understanding of rural communities, rural health care and the healthcare team. Preparation of the students, the preceptors and the communities emerged as a key element of success. This model extends and enhances the traditional apprenticeship model by its rural focus and distributed nature, and involvement of the entire student cohort. In addition, the contribution to patient care by senior students and junior doctors enables a consultant-registrar-resident model, in which experienced rural doctors function as consultants providing advice, support and tuition rather than predominantly face-to-face patient care. This approach also provides a means to address an emerging paradox: rural preceptors and communities want to teach students, appreciating the long-term workforce implications, but are increasingly constrained by resources, particularly time. Similar innovative approaches should be explored in other settings.

終末期医療・看護に関する授業と医学生の死生観との関係

We conducted a national survey to examine how programs to teach end-of-life care to medical students in Japanese medical schools influence their death attitude. Sixteen medical schools participated. We conducted a questionnaire survey on fifth- or sixth-year medical students' death attitude at each medical school. Attitude of death was analyzed by the Death Attitude Inventory formed by Hirai et al, which is composed of seven factors: Afterlife belief, Death anxiety, Death relief, Death avoidance, Life purpose, Death concern, and Supernatural belief. We studied how students' attitude to death relates to programs to teach end-of-life care. Overall 1,017 of 1,510 students (67.4%) from the 16 medical schools participated. The students who took a program to teach end-of-life care presented Afterlife belief, Death concern and Supernatural belief score higher than those who did not participate in any program. Multiple logistic regression analysis was conducted and it was found that those trend disappeared, and the students who took a program had greater Death anxiety significantly higher than those who took no program. We concluded that the attitude of medical students to death was not related to programs to teach end-of-life care in medical schools. Our survey suggested that improving end-of-life care education is needed to mold the attitude of medical students to death.

Training sixth-year medical students in obtaining case-history information from adults with aphasia

Background: Recent studies have shown that partner training in supported communication strategies enhances communication for people with aphasia. Such training of healthcare providers may facilitate communication with adults with aphasia in the healthcare arena.Aims: In this study, a group of sixth-year medical students were trained to use supported communication strategies for the specific purpose of obtaining a case history from an adult with aphasia. These strategies were based on principles of Supported Conversation for Adults with Aphasia (SCATM) (Kagan, 1995, 1998a). Methods & Procedures: A randomised controlled group design was employed, in which the control group received theoretical information about aphasia and the experimental group received training in supported communication techniques. Baseline and post-training measures were obtained through rating participants' performance in a medical case-history interview with an adult with aphasia.Outcomes & Results: Students who received communication skills training improved significantly in their abilities to conduct a medical interview with an adult with aphasia in terms of obtaining information and establishing rapport. Conclusions: The results of this study provide motivation for communication skills training of healthcare professionals who interact with individuals with aphasia. Such training, utilising minimal resources and time, can effectively be incorporated into a medical training curriculum.

The Role of Basic Science Knowledge and Clinical Knowledge in Diagnostic Reasoning: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach

To examine four theories on the role of basic science knowledge and clinical knowledge in diagnostic reasoning. In 2000-01, the authors tested the basic science and clinical knowledge and diagnostic performances of 59 family physicians and 184 second- to sixth-year medical students at Maastricht University, The Netherlands. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data. Four theoretical models were tested. In the first model only basic science knowledge is involved in diagnostic reasoning; in the second model only clinical knowledge is related to diagnostic reasoning; in the third model, clinical knowledge is related to diagnostic reasoning, but basic science knowledge is integrated in clinical knowledge; and in the fourth model, both basic science knowledge and clinical knowledge independently influence diagnostic reasoning. Forty-four (75%) of the family physicians and 184 (100%) of the students responded. The results indicated that the third model, which is based on the knowledge encapsulation theory, provided the best fit to the data, whereas the models that had directly related basic science knowledge with diagnostic performance did not fit the data adequately. The results generally supported the third model by Schmidt and Boshuizen of knowledge encapsulation theory suggesting that basic science knowledge is activated in expert diagnostic reasoning through its relation with clinical knowledge.

Integrating applied anatomy in surgical clerkship in a problem-based learning curriculum

Little attention has been given to structured teaching of applied anatomy to senior medical students in problem-based learning (PBL) medical schools. A course named "Anatomical Principles in Surgical Practice" was introduced at the Arabian Gulf University (AGU) in 2001 for fifth- and sixth-year medical students during their surgical clerkship rotation. The course aims to emphasize, update and integrate applied anatomical concepts that are essential for surgical practice. The course consists of 15 interactive sessions held weekly to ensure topics coincide with the surgical problem-solving sessions. A questionnaire was administered to students completing their surgical rotations (n = 131) seeking their perceptions about the new course during the academic years 2001, 2002 and 2003. To measure learning outcome, 70 students were also given pre- and post-tests. Positive responses were given by 85.2% of the students for course arrangement, by 92.0% for course content, by 88.3% for clinical correlation, by 95.2% for level of teaching and by 87.2% for overall judgment. The students' mean scores in the post-test (71.7%+/-11.7) was significantly higher than their mean scores in the pre-test (42.3%+/-12.6, p < 0.001). Students liked the course and reported feeling more confident in correlating anatomy with surgery during their rotations. By extending anatomical teaching into the clerkship phase, a link between basic medical and clinical sciences has been established that further enhances vertical integration within a PBL curriculum in a spiral fashion.

Smoking Habits Among Sixth-Year Medical Students in Spain

To describe and analyze the smoking habits of sixth-year Spanish medical students. The target population of this descriptive cross-sectional study was students completing their sixth year in Spanish medical schools. An anonymous, self-administered questionnaire was sent to the students' homes by ordinary mail. The relationships between the variables were analyzed using contingency tables, the chi2 test, the Student t test, and analysis of variance with a significance level of P< .05. The software package was SPSS. A total of 3840 questionnaires were distributed to students, and 1340 were returned completed (34.9%). Of the respondents, 27% were smokers (8.7% smoked only on weekends, and 18.3% were daily smokers). The mean (SD) number of cigarettes smoked per day was 10.54 (7.89). Consumption was significantly higher among men than among women. The mean age of initiation was 17.20 years. Of the students who were smokers, 32.54% stated that they had started smoking during their medical studies. The percentage of smokers who stated that they wanted to quit was 76.3%, and 56.6% said that they had already made at least one quit attempt. It is cause for concern that a large number of students start smoking after they enter medical school. One of the reasons for this is the lack of concern about smoking as a health problem within medical schools. The smoking habits of medical students are affected by the same phenomena that affect those of the general public, such as the increase in the number of women smokers, the influence of sociocultural factors, and the increasingly broader age range of initiation. The lower prevalence of smoking among medical students with respect to other populations is probably due to the fact that, in general, these students have better health habits than the general public, and/or the reasons that led them to study medicine also make them disinclined to smoke.

Die Effek Van Biografiese Veranderlikes Op Die Vlakke En Oorsake Van Stres By 'N Groep Finalejaar- Mediese Studente

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image sizeABSTRACTBackground South Africans experience very high levels of stress. One way to address this problem is to identify risk groups and to handle their stress in a proactive way. This can only be done by identifying the level and causes of stress and to determine if the scores of subgroups (for instance sex, age, home language and marital status), differ significantly from each other. This will make it possible to suggest and implement coping mechanisms.Method A self-evaluation questionnaire (the Experience of Work and Life Circumstances Questionnaire) was tested on an accidental sample of 85 sixth-year medical students studying at a large university in the central region of South Africa. The effect of biographical data on the students' levels and causes of stress was determined by one-way variance analysis in order to test if group averages differed significantly.Results Significant differences were found between male and female students with regard to physical working conditions and job equipment, career issues and fringe benefits/remuneration. A number of recommendations were made in the light of these findings.Keywords: stressmedical studentstensionetiologylevel of stress

Substance use in a sample of Turkish medical students

This study identifies the prevalence of smoking, alcohol, and illicit drug use in a sample of Turkish medical students. Information about substance use was obtained from 304 first-year, and 143 sixth-year medical students from three different medical schools in Turkey. Nearly half of the students (53.9%) were non-drinkers. Risky alcohol use was 7.4%. Lifetime smoking prevalence was 39.9 and 26.4% of the junior and 44.1% of the senior medical students (mean consumption of 13.9 and 15.5 cigarettes a day, respectively) reported regular smoking. Nicotine dependence was present in 3.1%. Only 4% of the students reported using illicit drugs (cannabis, ecstasy, cocaine) at least once in their lifetime. The mean ages of first use of cigarettes, alcohol and illicit drugs were earlier for junior medical students than senior students. Of the students, 25.5% had anxiety and 36.8% had depression scores in the clinically significant range. Our results suggest that although Turkish medical students are not at a high risk of substance abuse it should not be underestimated, and the risk factors as well as the protective factors must be identified in nation-wide studies.

Medical students' understanding of geriatric medicine

With the rapid aging of Japan's population, medical professionals who specialize in geriatric medicine are in unprecedented demand. At Ehime University School of Medicine, the Department of Geriatric Medicine was established on April 1,1997. To assess the status of geriatric medicine in undergraduate education, we surveyed the opinions of medical students on geriatric medicine. A questionnaire was sent to both fourth-year medical students before their classes on internal medicine and geriatric medicine had ended and to sixth-year medical students after their classes had already ended. Medical students of Ehime University School of Medicine had significantly more interest in geriatric medicine than students at other medical schools. From a clinical viewpoint of problems in old age, they considered that cerebrovascular disease, cardiovascular disorders, neurocognitive disorders and pulmonary disease were important. A total of 60% agreed that all medical schools should have classes in geriatric medicine, which is a higher rate than that of previous reports. To study the opinions of medical students on textbooks on geriatrics, we also conducted a questionnaire among medical students. Although 90% of students had their own textbooks of internal medicine and almost half (42%) had textbooks on physical examination, none had their own textbook of geriatric medicine. The most frequent reason was "hard to choose the best textbook". The present study indicates that to develop education in geriatric medicine, it is important to make a recommendable text book for medical students, which is easily understood with high quality and originality.

Alcohol use among sixth-year medical students at the University of the Free State

Introduction. Excessive alcohol consumption among students is cause for concern, not only because medical students them- selves may suffer in the long term but also because of the potential negative impact this may have on their effectiveness as tomorrow’s doctors. Objectives. The aim of the study was to investigate alcohol use among 6th-year medical students at the University of the Free State (UFS) and reasons for their alcohol use. Methods. After a compulsory lecture on an unrelated topic, the 6th-year medical students at the UFS were given a demo- graphic questionnaire, the self-rated Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) and a shortened version of the self- rated Inventory of Drug-taking Situations (IDTS) to complete. Conclusion. From the results of this study it is clear that a sig- nificant number of 6th-year medical students at the UFS (28.3%) use alcohol in a harmful way. Most students use alco- hol when they are with friends or in some kind of social setting. However, a number of students use alcohol to cope with stress- ful situations. It is therefore important that the prevention of harmful use of alcohol should receive attention in medical schools.

An interdisciplinary course in the basic sciences for senior medical and PhD students.

Integrating clinical and basic sciences throughout the medical school curriculum has become a major objective of various innovations in medical education. While early clinical exposure has evolved as an efficient means of introducing clinical studies in the preclinical years, interdisciplinary integration of basic sciences during the clinical years remains a challenge. The authors describe their three years of experience with an interdisciplinary course designed to demonstrate the continuum of medical information from the clinic to the basic sciences. In this course, sixth-year medical students are required to choose one of three to four different one-week programs, each of which requires them to conduct an in-depth investigation of a defined clinical topic. Program coordinators are encouraged to work in clinician-basic scientist teams and to use a variety of teaching methods, with an emphasis on tutored individual and group learning based on critical readings of original papers. Coordinators are also encouraged to enable graduate research students to participate. From 1998 to 2000, students participated in nine programs, seven of which were coordinated by interdisciplinary teams. Several clinical and basic science disciplines were represented in each program, and various teaching methods were used. Graduate students participated in two of the programs. Evaluation of the programs (a debriefing discussion as well as short written evaluations) indicated moderate to good achievement of the course objectives.

Medicina de familia: ¿la cenicienta del pregrado? Estudio de la opinión de los estudiantes de medicina sobre la especialidad de medicina familiar y comunitaria

To find the views of students doing the last year of medicine on the specialty of family and community medicine (FCM). Cross-sectional study through self-administered questionnaire. Medical faculties of the Universities of Oviedo and Cantabria. Sixth-year medical students with possibilities of completing their degrees in the year 2000.Interventions. 22-question multiple-choice questionnaire, including assessment of undergraduate FCM training and view of its inclusion as a subject, choice of specialty in the next residents (MIR) exam, status of FCM, choice of professional to treat common pathologies in primary care, and knowledge of an activity (management of short-term time off) of GPs. 73% of the 94 medical students polled had no theoretical training in FCM, but 89% were in favour of including it in the degree programme. 6% wanted to work as GPs. 77% thought that the status of FCM was comparable to that of other specialties. The rest thought it was inferior, although its status would rise for half of these if the FCM residency lasted 4 years. 50% would not choose FM to treat common pathologies in primary care. 55% identified the GP as the person empowered to issue sick notes for common illness. Lack of undergraduate training in FCM is the cause of lack of interest in this specialty among medical students, its lack of status and students' lack of knowledge.

Sequential testing in the assessment of clinical skills.

Educators who use standardized-patient-based (SP-based) tests may save resources by using sequential testing. In this approach, students take a short screening test; only those who fail take a second test. This study investigated whether sequential testing increases efficiency with only a minor decrease of validity. In 1994-95, first- through fourth-year (Group 1) and sixth-year (Group 2) medical students at the University of Maastricht took SP-based tests. Each test took two days. In a simulation experiment based on the data from those tests, the authors considered the first day as the screening test and the second day as the second test. They investigated efficiency and validity as a function of the cutoff score of the screening test. They developed and evaluated a new method to determine the optimum cutoff score of the screening test, a method based on minimization of the loss represented by the (weighted) numbers of false positives and negatives in the screening test. The negative predictive value (probability that a student would fail the complete test if he or she had failed the screening test) was low (<60%), while the positive predictive value was high (>96%). Accordingly, stringent pass/fail cutoff scores in the screening test (75% for Group 1 and 80% for Group 2) produced optimum results. Using those cutoff values, only 26% and 11% of 'the students would have had to take the complete test to get a "true" score, while only 0.2% and 0.0% of the students who passed the screening test went on to fail the complete test (false positives). In a sequential SP-based test, the pass/fail cutoff score of the screening test should be stringent. This can considerably reduce testing time (30% to 40%), while keeping the percentage of false positives at an acceptably low level of less than 0.2%. As an alternative to receiver operator characteristic analysis, minimization of the loss function was found to be an appropriate method to determine the optimum cutoff value of the screening test.

Why German medical students abandon dissertations.

In Germany, conducting a research project followed by writing a thesis is necessary to receive the title "Doctor" but is not necessary to work as a physician. To determine the reasons that students abandon their dissertations, we conducted and analyzed a survey among 160 fifth and sixth-year medical students at the University of Wuerzburg. Fifteen of 160 respondents (9%) reported to have stopped working on their original project before starting their current replacement thesis research project. Among these 15, the major reasons for abandoning the original research project were: seven (47%) reported lack of supervision, three (20%) reported no recognizable progress, and another three (20%) reported an unacceptable burden of work. Unfamiliarity with experimental methods led two students (13%) to stop working on their original research project. Close supervision and a thorough training remain necessary to prevent students from abandoning medical dissertations and thus should be an essential part of every research project in which medical students are involved.

Effective Method of Teaching Psychiatry to Undergraduate Medical Students: The Student Perspective

Objectives: A search of the literature revealed that there are no studies of the effectiveness of teaching strategies from the medical students’ perspective. This study aims to explore medical students’ views on various teaching methods in psychiatry. Materials and Methods: A questionnaire describing several learning methods including clinical or bedside teaching, independent study, lectures, teaching aids, verbal/nonverbal behavior, and small-group teaching was administered to sixth-year medical students of the Faculty of Medicine, Health Sciences Center, Kuwait University. Results: Eighty-three percent of the students surveyed thought that well-delivered lectures were the most preferable learning method. Fifty-five percent agreed that live patient presentations were the most effective teaching aid. Independent study and small-group teaching were negatively viewed by 75% of the students. Slides/overheads and video presentations were evaluated by students as the last useful teaching methods. Factors cited as helpful in teaching included an enthusiastic interactive lecturer, a clear, audible voice, and visual teaching materials. Conclusion: This finding suggests that medical students are able to differentiate between effective and ineffective teaching methods in psychiatry and because of this they remain among the keenest critics of the education they receive.

Impact of an Educational Program on Antibiotic Use in a Tertiary Care Hospital in a Developing Country

A multi-cross-sectional study was conducted in a 2000-bed tertiary care university hospital in Bangkok, Thailand, from September 1993 to May 1994 to assess the effectiveness of an educational program on the use of antibiotics. Data on the study covered antibiotic usage both in-patients and out-patients. Data were collected for a 24-hour period every 2 weeks for 7 days for each 3-month period. The target population were residents, general practitioners, and sixth-year medical students. The educational program provided information derived from the data of inappropriate use of antibiotics during the pre-intervention period and guidelines on the use of antibiotics which were agreed to by a concensus among the faculty in all clinical departments. The study revealed: (1) the prevalence of antibiotic use and the cost of antibiotics during post-intervention period was significantly decreased by 20%; (2) the use of antibiotic prophylaxis for obstetrics patients and patients undergoing cataract surgery decreased significantly; (3) there was a shift from second or third generation cephalosporins to cefazolin for surgical prophylaxis; (4) the duration of perioperative antibiotic prophylaxis was reduced to under 2 days; (5) there was a shift from netilmicin or amikacin to gentamicin for the treatment of community acquired infection; and (6) the mortality, median length of hospital stay, and nosocomial infection rate among the patients who received antibiotics during the post-intervention period were not significantly different from those during the pre-intervention period. These results suggest that this educational program comprising information feedback and antibiotic usage guidelines was effective in improving antibiotic use at this tertiary care university hospital in Thailand.

Teaching problem-solving and clinical reasoning: 20 years experience with video-supported small-group learning.

In the context of a curriculum reform the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Leuven, Belgium, introduced a new teaching project: video-supported small-group learning on problem-solving and clinical reasoning. The aim of this study is to reflect 20 years experience. The video-supported sessions for sixth-year medical students during their practical year in peripheral hospitals were constructed in four stages. The first stage is the video presentation of a case with history-taking and physical examination. The student and three tutors of internal medicine make notes and can ask further questions and perform additional physical examination acts after the video presentation. The coordinator of the course, who knows the patient, then simulates the patient and the doctor to answer the questions. The second stage consists of making up individually a synoptic problem list, integrating history and physical examination; a differential diagnosis list with the most likely diagnosis fitting the problem list; and a list with investigations to be asked for confirming the diagnosis. The third stage consists of three small student groups discussing the three lists requested in stage 2. Each small group of students, passively assisted by a tutor, has to come to the consensus lists. The fourth stage is the confrontation of the consensus lists of the three groups with the aim of coming to an overall agreement. At this stage tutors are more actively involved in the discussion. Several learning processes are involved in this way of teaching. During the first stage the students learn the traditional teaching 'see one, do one and teach one', a demonstration of a full history and physical examination. By asking for additional information they learn by a critical attitude and by developing a strategy of fact-finding. During the second and third stages, by making their lists and during the consensus processes, they learn the significance of individual findings, problem-framing and the synthesis of history and physical examination data in medical concepts. The third and fourth parts of the sessions bring up the process of clinical reasoning, formulation of a working hypothesis, the discussion of the pathophysiology of findings, clustering of problems and epidemiological considerations as incidence and prevalence. Finally, the exercise to select diagnostic tests gives the students the possibility of appreciating the value of sensitivity/specificity and risks, benefits and costs of diagnostic procedures. These video-supported clinical problem-solving and reasoning sessions were positively appraised by students, teachers and medical faculty over the years. Over 20 years, more than 90 cases have been recorded on video, with a widespread variation in diagnoses and clinical presentations. Small-group teaching with the aid of a video case, as described in this paper, can promote enjoyable learning for students and teachers.

Crying in hospitals: a survey of doctors', nurses' and medical students' experience and attitudes.

To investigate doctors', nurses' and medical students' experiences with, and attitudes of health care personnel towards, crying in hospitals. Descriptive, cross-sectional study, using self-report questionnaires. The sample comprised 52 doctors (response rate, 33%) and 103 nurses (response rate, 58%) from three Sydney metropolitan general hospitals, and 101 sixth-year medical students (response rate, 99%). Crying was frequent in hospitals; 57% of doctors, 76% of nurses and 31% of medical students had cried at work in the hospital at least once, and women cried significantly more often than men. Being a nurse significantly increased, whereas being a medical student significantly decreased, the likelihood of crying. Medical students reported the highest percentage of negative social consequences of their own crying (e.g., being ridiculed or screamed at). The main reason for all respondents' crying was identification and bonding with suffering and dying patients or their families. The respondents generally viewed crying by patients as a healthy response, and they were empathetic towards the crying patient. About one-third of the respondents were interested in (or would consider) using psychological help to explore their own emotional reactions to crying. Despite its limited sample, this study suggests that the topic of "crying" should be included in medical training, and that support be provided for medical staff who are distressed by crying behaviour in hospitals.