Abstract:
New entrants of the universities belong to different socioeconomic, cultural
and religious Backgrounds. They may have a lot of problems like personal
fears, home sickness, peer pressure, ragging, language issues, time
management and other problems with non-technical skills when adjusting to
university life. A medical student may have to face more stresses than other
professional students because of the workload they have to finish within 5
years. Therefore, an orientation programme is expected to help them to transit
from the safe zone of an over protected life and spoon fed learning to an
independent life and self-learning. Faculty of Medicine of Wayamba
University of Sri Lanka conducted an Orientation Program called Professional
Transition Program (PTP) over 8 weeks for the new entrants with the main
objective of helping them to acquire necessary skills and knowledge for
professional transition from being high school students to Physicians.
Workshops on non-technical skills, introductory lectures on basic sciences,
lectures on information communication technology and English language,
hospital visits, introduction to library facilities, visit of the university premises
and mentoring sessions were included into PTP. At the end of the PTP, a
programme evaluation was conducted as a part of the program to seek whether
it has been successful in achieving its objectives for program implementation
and participant outcomes. The objective of the research was to evaluate the
Professional Transition Program from the view of the participants.
Descriptive cross sectional study was conducted among all the first year
students of first batch (2017/2018) of the Faculty of Medicine, Wayamba
University of Sri Lanka. Total population was 72 students. An anonymous,
pretested, semi-structured, self-administered questionnaire; was designed as a
Google form and sent it to students to fill online. All the responses were
analyzed using SPSS version 20 software. The data is presented as Descriptive
statistics.
Female students were 69.4% from the total population and 79.2% were
Sinhalese. Majority of the students expressed positive comments about
improving their understanding on overview of the medical curriculum (92.0%), examination Regulations(98.0%), adjusting to university life
(82.4%), career options for medical graduate (94.2%), communication skills &
positive thinking (94.2%), time management (86.0%), health in University
(86.3%), public speaking and oratory skills (78.4%), library and accessing
resources (78.0%), para clinical years and the clinical years (88.0%), etiquette
(96.0%), active learning (96.0%), emotional intelligence (96.0%). Among the
key areas of the PTP, understanding on discipline at the university (54.9%),
ragging & its effects (49.0%), alcohol & drug abuse, mental health in
university, sexual education, accident, suicides & homicide, when to ask for
help and whom to go (54.9%) and professional code of ethics, what do patients
expect from doctors, social responsibility (54.0%) has been improved into
great extent after attending to program as perceived by the students. Majority
expressed that knowledge on every topic in the programme except library and
accessing resources is essential in great extent to carry out their academic
programme. Majority of the students (76.1%) expressed that hospital visits
were helpful in great extent to have an understanding on how to communicate
with a patient & history taking. 30.4% of the students satisfied in great extent
with the duration of the programme.
Almost 90% of the students have agreed that the programme is worth enough
to help them for their academic programme and satisfied about the content of
the programme. Therefore, it is recommended to continue the PTP for the next
batch with the amendments according to the suggestions given by the study.