Exploring the experiences of struggling undergraduate medical students with formal mentoring program at a private medical college in Rawalpindi.

Objective: To explore the experiences of struggling undergraduate medical students (mentees) with formal mentoring program at a private medical college in Rawalpindi. Methods: A qualitative exploratory study was carried out from March to August 2019. Data was collected from a purposive sample of sixteen struggling undergraduate students. Validated interview guide was utilized to conduct semi-structured one-to-one interviews. Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed accurately. Confidentiality and anonymity were ensured to the participants due to the sensitive nature of the data. Various measures were taken to achieve trustworthiness in the study. Manual thematic analysis was performed and consensus among all authors was built regarding themes and subthemes. Results: Four themes and twelve subthemes emerged from the data. Participants were satisfied with the psychosocial outcomes of the mentoring program such as emotional, moral, and psychological support, and personal and professional development. Mentees told that mentors were their best guides who shared their life experiences. Moreover, mentors provided guidance on Islam, research methods, and case-based learning. Further, mentees said that mentors provide solutions to their problems. Useful suggestions were provided by the mentees regarding betterment in the present mentoring program such as recruitment of committed staff, the need for verbal feedback from mentees about their mentors, need for career counselling and one-to-one mentoring sessions. Conclusions: Majority of the mentees were satisfied with the formal mentoring program. Mentoring focuses on personal and professional development of all medical students. In addition to the useful suggestions provided by the mentees, there is a need for the addition of specific strategies to deal with students struggling with personal or professional problems.

Barriers And Facilitators To Write Good Quality MCQS For Dental Assessments: A Qualitative Case Study.

BACKGROUND: To explore barriers and facilitators to write good quality items for undergraduate dental assessments. METHODS: A qualitative case study was conducted from Feb-April 2021. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of eighteen item writers from a public-sector dental institute of Rawalpindi, Pakistan. The data were transcribed verbatim and thematically analyzed to extract themes regarding barriers and facilitators to write good quality items. All quality assurance procedures of qualitative research were ensured during the research process.. RESULTS: Five themes related to barriers and three themes related to facilitators to write good quality items emerged from the data. The participants reported more barriers such as lack of frequent training and lack of peer review and feedback. Other barriers were demotivation due to lack of acknowledgement or monetary incentives, lack of content and construct expertise, clinical workload, and contextual barriers such as lack of internet facility, outdated library, and lack of place and time allocation for item construction. Facilitators were availability of peer review, feedback from post-hoc analysis, motivation due to the senior designation, clinical experience, and ample time for basic sciences faculty. CONCLUSIONS: Frequent item writing training, strong peer review process, pre-exam item vetting by the dental education department, and institutional improvements such as striving for content experts, time and place allocation for item construction, internet facility, updated library, and equal distribution of workload among faculty could enhance the quality of items. Moreover, ways to inculcate motivation among item writers such as appreciation or monetary incentives could be used to improve the quality of undergraduate assessments.

Prevalence of HCV among the high risk groups in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Hepatitis C is an infectious disease, caused by blood borne pathogen; the Hepatitis C Virus. In this study we analyzed blood samples collected from various risk groups for the prevalence of anti-HCV and active HCV infection with the help of Immunochromtographic tests and nested PCR. The prevalence of active HCV infection among the high risk groups was 15.57% (26/167). The prevalence of HCV in individual risk groups was 15%, 28%, 8%, 14.28% and 14.28% in the case of thalassemics, dialysis, major surgery group, dental surgery group and injection drug users respectively. Our analysis reveals the fact that health care facilities in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan are contributing a great deal towards the spread of HCV infection.

Prevalence of active HCV infection among the blood donors of Khyber Pakhtunkwa and FATA region of Pakistan and evaluation of the screening tests for anti-HCV.

Hepatitis C is a fatal liver disease caused by the hepatitis C virus. In this study, blood donors, from various districts of the KPK province and the federally administered tribal area (FATA) of Pakistan were tested for anti-HCV antibodies and HCV RNA by ICT (Immuno-chromatographic test), ELISA and RT-PCR. Out of the 7148 blood donors, 224 (3.13%) were positive for anti-HCV antibodies by ICT, 135 (1.89%) by ELISA while 118 (1.65%) blood donors had active HCV infection as detected by RT-PCR. We suggest that ELISA should be used for anti-HCV screening in public sector hospitals and health care units.