The use of text mining to detect key shifts in Japanese first-year medical student professional identity formation through early exposure to non-healthcare hospital staff

A podcast to teach medical humanities at medical school: a text-mining study of students' lived experience

The teaching of medical humanities is increasingly being integrated into medical school curricula. We developed a podcast called Le Serment d'Augusta (Augusta's Oath), consisting of six episodes tackling hot topics in the modern world of healthcare related to the patient-doctor relationship, professionalism, and ethics. This podcast aimed to provide scientific content in an entertaining way, while promoting debate among medical students. The Le Serment d'Augusta podcast was proposed as one of the various optional modules included in the second- to fifth-year curriculum at the School of Medicine of Sorbonne University (Paris). We asked students to report their lived experience of listening to the podcast. We then used a text-mining approach focusing on two main aspects: i) students' perspective of the use of this educational podcast to learn about medical humanities; ii) self-reported change in their perception of and knowledge about core elements of healthcare after listening to the podcast. 478 students were included. Students were grateful for the opportunity to participate in this teaching module. They greatly enjoyed this kind of learning tool and reported that it gave them autonomy in learning. They appreciated the content as well as the format, highlighting that the topics were related to the very essence of medical practice and that the numerous testimonies were of great added value. Listening to the podcast resulted in knowledge acquisition and significant change of perspective. These findings further support the use of podcasts in medical education, especially to teach medical humanities, and their implementation in the curriculum.

Pharmacy from the perspectives of other health professions: An intervention to foster professional identity among freshmen pharmacy students

Background

Professional identity is crucial for the development of pharmacy students' professional confidence, learning motivation and future career choices. However, how to develop students' professional identity in pharmacy education is an underdeveloped field of research. The critical component of professional identity has been considered formed as a result of stepwise socialization. Therefore, pharmacy professional identity might be influenced by associations with other health care professionals, such as physicians and nurses, who are involved in health care collaboration with pharmacists.

Objectives

This work aimed to investigate the effect of a student-led interview intervention called "Pharmacy from the perspectives of other health professions" as an intervention on pharmacy freshmen's perceptions and positivity toward the pharmacy profession.

Methods

In this prospective pre/postintervention study, the effect of the interview intervention on students' job preferences as well as attitudes toward the pharmacy profession and pharmacists' role in health care was evaluated among 70 first-year pharmacy undergraduates equally divided into intervention and control groups using a self-developed questionnaire.

Results

Compared with the controls, the numbers of respondents reporting no specific reasons for selecting the pharmacy profession and stating that they were unclear about their preferred post-graduation work sector were significantly reduced after the intervention. Participating in the intervention increased the number of students who agreed or strongly agreed that they would have a fulfilling and socially respectable career. Significantly more students in the intervention group agreed with the pharmacists' role in health care as well as the current situation of pharmacy human resources than in the control group.

Conclusion

This student-led interview intervention could be applied as an effective tool for improving students' professional identity and positivity in pharmacy education.

Broadening the Dental Hygiene Students’ Perspectives on the Oral Health Professionals: A Text Mining Analysis

Professional identity formation, an important component of education, is influenced by participation, social relationships, and culture in communities of practice. As a preliminary investigation of dental hygienists’ professional identity formation, this study examined changes in the dental hygiene students’ perceptions of oral health professionals over the three years of their undergraduate program. At a Japanese dental hygiene school, 40 students participated in surveys with open-ended questions about professional groups several times during their studies. The text data were analyzed through content analysis with text mining software. The themes that characterized their dental hygienist profession perceptions in their programs each year were identified as: “Supporters at the dental clinic”; “Engagement with interprofessional care” and “Improved problem-solving skills for clinical issues regarding the oral region”; and “Active contribution to general health” and “Recognition of the roles considering relationships” (in the first, second, and third years, respectively). The students acquired professional knowledge and recognized the significance and roles of oral health professionals in practice. They gained more learning experiences in their education, including clinical placements and interprofessional education. This study provides insight into curriculum development for professional identity formation in dental hygiene students.