Enhancing medical students' science communication skills: from the perspective of new media.

ABSTRACT

With the development of science over the years, people have increasingly realized the importance of science communication. Unfortunately, very little research has focused on helping medical students develop the capabilities of science communication. To improve medical students' science communication and evaluate the effectiveness of New Media through mobile clients in health science communication, a competition was held among medical undergraduates. Outstanding works were selected for publication on our official health science communication WeChat account. Furthermore, the participants volunteered to complete a questionnaire survey to help us assess students' awareness of science communication. Our analysis revealed that students had a strong willingness to serve society and to participate in science communication work. Students generally agreed that science communication work had excellent effects on professional knowledge and related skills. In addition, the correlation results showed that the greater students' willingness to participate in health science communication was, the greater their sense of gain. New Media effectively expand the influence of students' popular science works. Our findings suggest that competition in science communication has a positive impact on enhancing students' awareness and capabilities in science communication. In addition, New Media are an effective way to improve students' scientific communication efficiency. However, we also noted that students' participation rate and enthusiasm for scientific communication were not high. Further research is needed to determine the reasons for this situation and potential strategies to further improve students' science communication.NEW & NOTEWORTHY The science communication competition had a positive impact on helping medical students develop awareness and capabilities for science communication. In addition, New Media are an effective way to improve students' scientific communication efficiency.