Cultural Appropriation for Improved Knowledge Acquisition in Medical Education.

Background: Culture is an essential component that governs all aspects of human behavior. Superstition is an irrational belief observed in almost all cultures. It is linked to one or more factors like supernatural powers, good luck, bad omen, fiction, illegitimate activity, absurd narration, folk tales, or practice without any rational basis. Methods: A cross-sectional social experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of cultural appropriation as a tool to enhance medical knowledge acquisition and attitudinal development in medical education. The experiment was designed to target a non-medical population. Four superstition-oriented videos were developed with 20 scientific pieces of information related to forensic medicine. A data collection sheet was developed on Microsoft form with 16 questions was distributed on the participants. Results: Out of the 986 participants, 763 (77.5%) watched the whole set of videos. About 55-95% of responders demonstrated knowledge acquisition of all the questions. There was a statistically significant difference between those who watched the videos and those who did not. When participants were asked about the most important information they remember from the videos, their answers fell into two main categories; information related to core scientific knowledge (80% of participants) and information not related to the core knowledge (16% of respondents). The top three areas for the reasons why people wanted to watch the videos were curiosity, knowledge, and career. A change in attitudes was reported among the participants where 80% of responders demonstrated curiosity to know more about this world, 46% responders reported developing more respect for the forensic physician and 43% revealed their ignorance about this great hidden world. Conclusion: Cultural appropriation could be a needed strategy to accommodate for upscale in education. Learners might validate that learning happens through a door that adopts not only honours their culture and adapts to it.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Managing the Educational Crisis: Lessons Learned from COVID-19 Pandemic.

BACKGROUND: Medical education is facing great challenges and uncertainties amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: This article aims to provide tips that can provide a guide for medical education leaders to coordinate crisis management referring to the Egyptian context. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This work was done using a reflection on the COVID-19 response by Egyptian universities and analysis of such responses. RESULTS: Medical Education Institutions are required to build a taskforce team for crisis management. These should be committed to supporting sudden online education transition, academic support, and the psychological well-being of students, staff members, health care professionals, paramedics, and faculty administration. As the situation evolves, the taskforce has to monitor the challenges and provide appropriate plans, guidance, and solutions. Leaders in medical education have a crucial role in response to the pandemic crisis in securing a successful educational process while ensuring the mental and psychological well-being of the stakeholders. CONCLUSION: Crisis management is the skill of the future and more investment needs to be placed in designing crisis response and in enabling universities to accommodate this response.

Use of Short Videos for Faculty Development in Adaptation of Interactive Teaching Strategies for Virtual Classroom.

The threat associated with physical interaction in teaching and learning timed with the COVID-19 pandemic has rendered faculty in a situation that they were not entirely prepared for. This paper describes a case study where educational videos were used in short format to help faculty progress in their adaptation to virtual teaching. The initiative describes the adaptations done to the videos and making them ore accessible to faculty. The channel experienced a 300% increase in viewership. There is an inherent need for training on using virtual classroom tools and adapting teaching strategies to these virtual tools. Using 5-7 minute videos proved useful in this area.

Forensic analysis of ocular injuries during the 2011 revolution in Egypt.

INTRODUCTION: During the year 2011 the Egyptian revolution arose with a change in the trend of eye trauma in Egypt. AIM OF WORK: This study aims at reviewing the epidemiology of ocular trauma presenting to Ain Shams University teaching hospital during the year 2011 and comparing it with epidemiology during the previous 5 years. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This is a retrospective epidemiological and clinical study of patients admitted to Ain Shams University Hospital with ocular trauma from 2006 till 2011. Cases were analyzed with respect to age, sex, occupation, admission interval, type, mode, time and place of injury, causative instrument, diagnosis and examination findings, investigations, management and visual outcomes. RESULTS: Total numbers of cases presenting during the year 2011 was 237 cases. The mean age was 22.5 years. Students (47.2%) and jobless people (21.9%) constituted the majority of the sample. During the year 2011 there was a significant increase in the percentage of injuries occurring in the street. There was also a significant rise in the percentage of homicidal ocular injuries specially those caused from non-rifled weapons. Fourteen cases of endophthalmitis were associated with non-rifled fire arm missiles while 7 were associated with glass intra-ocular foreign body. This indicated that the probability of occurrence of endophthalmitis with metal intraocular foreign bodies was 2:3 i.e. 66.6% where as in glass intra ocular foreign body was 7:9 i.e. 77.7%. CONCLUSION: The majority of ocular trauma in our population during the year 2011 was due to homicidal street injuries occurring mainly in males of young age group, which is consistent with the events occurring in Egypt in this year. The findings indicate that ocular trauma is a significant cause of visual loss in this population.