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Social Accountability of Medical Schools Toward Their Students

Received: 14 January 2022    Accepted: 14 April 2022    Published: 19 May 2022
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Abstract

Social accountability refers to the role of institutions, including medical schools, as contributors to an evolving society. The COVID-19 pandemic and global health crisis have exacerbated challenges and difficulties of medical schools to adopt the social accountability paradigm. This exploratory study aims to identify weaknesses and demands of medical students during the COVID-19 pandemic with the intention of developing interventional, socially accountable educational programs. An online questionnaire was sent to medical students in year one to three for collecting data about students’ perception of preparedness to cope with sudden changes from in-person to online teaching due to COVID-19 measures. In addition, data about students’ well-being was collected according to the Shirom-Melamed Burnout Measure and the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale. 221 of 376 students completed the questionnaire (58.7%). During the COVID-19 pandemic, most medical students kept up with new educational technologies and adjusted to online learning. However, most students suffered from poor time and learning management, poor quality of life and burnout. Data analysis on wellbeing variables showed: a) poor quality of life (52%); b) medium to high level of burnout (65.1%), with the highest number of students with burnout (70%) in third year; c) medium level (73.8%) to high level (23%) of resilience across all years. Our study indicates that medical schools need to be socially accountable towards their students and allocate additional resources into programs for the support of the cognitive and emotional needs of medical students, with the emphasis of improving students’ learning management and cognitive skills, and by doing so, reducing burnout and improving quality of life. Finally, social accountability should also include students’ wellbeing, in addition to activities related to patients, health system and society.

Published in Education Journal (Volume 11, Issue 3)
DOI 10.11648/j.edu.20221103.13
Page(s) 95-105
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Burnout, Cognitive Load, COVID-19 Pandemic, Medical Schools, Medical Students, Quality of Life, Resilience, Social Accountability

References
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Cite This Article
  • APA Style

    Maria Teresa Alfonso Roca, Monica Muñoz Lopez, Luis Filgueira. (2022). Social Accountability of Medical Schools Toward Their Students. Education Journal, 11(3), 95-105. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.edu.20221103.13

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    ACS Style

    Maria Teresa Alfonso Roca; Monica Muñoz Lopez; Luis Filgueira. Social Accountability of Medical Schools Toward Their Students. Educ. J. 2022, 11(3), 95-105. doi: 10.11648/j.edu.20221103.13

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    AMA Style

    Maria Teresa Alfonso Roca, Monica Muñoz Lopez, Luis Filgueira. Social Accountability of Medical Schools Toward Their Students. Educ J. 2022;11(3):95-105. doi: 10.11648/j.edu.20221103.13

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  • @article{10.11648/j.edu.20221103.13,
      author = {Maria Teresa Alfonso Roca and Monica Muñoz Lopez and Luis Filgueira},
      title = {Social Accountability of Medical Schools Toward Their Students},
      journal = {Education Journal},
      volume = {11},
      number = {3},
      pages = {95-105},
      doi = {10.11648/j.edu.20221103.13},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.edu.20221103.13},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.edu.20221103.13},
      abstract = {Social accountability refers to the role of institutions, including medical schools, as contributors to an evolving society. The COVID-19 pandemic and global health crisis have exacerbated challenges and difficulties of medical schools to adopt the social accountability paradigm. This exploratory study aims to identify weaknesses and demands of medical students during the COVID-19 pandemic with the intention of developing interventional, socially accountable educational programs. An online questionnaire was sent to medical students in year one to three for collecting data about students’ perception of preparedness to cope with sudden changes from in-person to online teaching due to COVID-19 measures. In addition, data about students’ well-being was collected according to the Shirom-Melamed Burnout Measure and the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale. 221 of 376 students completed the questionnaire (58.7%). During the COVID-19 pandemic, most medical students kept up with new educational technologies and adjusted to online learning. However, most students suffered from poor time and learning management, poor quality of life and burnout. Data analysis on wellbeing variables showed: a) poor quality of life (52%); b) medium to high level of burnout (65.1%), with the highest number of students with burnout (70%) in third year; c) medium level (73.8%) to high level (23%) of resilience across all years. Our study indicates that medical schools need to be socially accountable towards their students and allocate additional resources into programs for the support of the cognitive and emotional needs of medical students, with the emphasis of improving students’ learning management and cognitive skills, and by doing so, reducing burnout and improving quality of life. Finally, social accountability should also include students’ wellbeing, in addition to activities related to patients, health system and society.},
     year = {2022}
    }
    

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    AB  - Social accountability refers to the role of institutions, including medical schools, as contributors to an evolving society. The COVID-19 pandemic and global health crisis have exacerbated challenges and difficulties of medical schools to adopt the social accountability paradigm. This exploratory study aims to identify weaknesses and demands of medical students during the COVID-19 pandemic with the intention of developing interventional, socially accountable educational programs. An online questionnaire was sent to medical students in year one to three for collecting data about students’ perception of preparedness to cope with sudden changes from in-person to online teaching due to COVID-19 measures. In addition, data about students’ well-being was collected according to the Shirom-Melamed Burnout Measure and the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale. 221 of 376 students completed the questionnaire (58.7%). During the COVID-19 pandemic, most medical students kept up with new educational technologies and adjusted to online learning. However, most students suffered from poor time and learning management, poor quality of life and burnout. Data analysis on wellbeing variables showed: a) poor quality of life (52%); b) medium to high level of burnout (65.1%), with the highest number of students with burnout (70%) in third year; c) medium level (73.8%) to high level (23%) of resilience across all years. Our study indicates that medical schools need to be socially accountable towards their students and allocate additional resources into programs for the support of the cognitive and emotional needs of medical students, with the emphasis of improving students’ learning management and cognitive skills, and by doing so, reducing burnout and improving quality of life. Finally, social accountability should also include students’ wellbeing, in addition to activities related to patients, health system and society.
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Author Information
  • Section of Medicine, Faculty of Science and Medicine, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland

  • Section of Medicine, Faculty of Science and Medicine, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland

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