Evaluation of the Professional Transition Programme of first year medical students of Wayamba University of Sri Lanka

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.