The academic impact and value of an international online surgery lecture series

Due to the worldwide travel restrictions caused by the 2019 coronavirus disease pandemic, many universities and students lost opportunities to engage in international exchange over the past 2 years. Teleconferencing systems have thus been developed to compensate for severe travel restrictions. Kansai Medical University in Japan and Vilnius University in Lithuania have a collaborative research and academic relationship. The two universities have been conducting an online joint international surgery lecture series for the medical students of both universities. Fifteen lectures were given from October 2021 to May 2022. The lectures focused on gastrointestinal surgery, gastroenterology, radiology, pathology, genetics, laboratory medicine, and organ transplantation. A survey of the attendees indicated that they were generally interested in the content and satisfied with attending this lecture series. Our efforts were successful in providing Japanese and Lithuanian medical students with the opportunity to engage in international exchange through lectures held in each other's countries.

Encouraging Students and Trainees to Write

Publications from Japan have been on the decline, and this tendency is expected to continue as the country's population decreases. During the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, it was discovered that Japanese medical trainees published much fewer papers than trainees from other nations. This issue must be addressed by the entire Japanese medical community. Trainees have the potential to contribute to the medical community through their publishing process presenting fresh perspectives and communicating accurate information to the public through the use of social media. Furthermore, trainees themselves would benefit as they would become more enhanced by deeply and critically considering the contents and the trends of publications worldwide, which would promote further implementation of evidence-based medicine. Therefore, medical educators and students should be motivated and encouraged to write by offering enough instructional and publication opportunities. Such measures would be to (1) train students in "medical writing" as part of the medical curriculum; (2) encourage medical students and trainees to submit of manuscripts, especially in the section of the letters, opinions, and case reports; (3) guarantee trainees time and resources to write; (4) provide as constructive reviews and comments as possible as an educational opportunity for trainees; and (5) motivate trainees to write. Such hands-on training would necessitate significant efforts of the trainees, instructors, and publishers. However, if we cannot invest in fostering future resources now, we may not be able to hope for increase in the amount of research published from Japan. The future lies in everybody's hands.

Implementing English for Medical Purposes (EMP) in South Korea: Nursing students' ongoing needs analysis

Despite the growing popularity of English for Medical Purposes courses for nurses and nursing students in the East Asian region, relatively little research has been done to investigate whether these courses meet students' specific pragmatic or learning needs. Drawing on the analysis of questionnaires and interview data collected from 66 South Korean nursing students who enrolled in the Medial English course, the study aims to demonstrate the students' specific learning purposes and their pragmatic needs that are highly relevant to the values and conventions of the target discourse community. The findings of the study suggest that while most students agree with the need for English for Specific Purposes courses, they report that the current courses do not fully fit their needs and expectations because of (a) an English-only classroom policy, (b) limited academic literacy in English, and (c) non-localized materials. Findings help language educators, policy makers and researchers in the East Asian region to better understand the importance of looking at specificity of English for Medical Purposes courses and the students' unique needs, and provide them with suggestions for enhancing the effectiveness and specificity of English for Medical Purposes courses.

The implementation of the Japanese Dental English core curriculum: active learning based on peer-teaching and learning activities

BACKGROUND

Education in Japan and other Asian countries advocates the stereotypical passive learning style where students are limited in their breadth of knowledge dismissing anything not imparted by their teachers. With globalized education, professions are becoming very competitive, embracing student-centeredness compelling them to introduce active learning activities. A study funded by Japan's Ministry of Education conducted a needs analysis, proposed a solution, and implemented an active learning approach. Since the latter is still new in the Japanese teaching-learning environment, this current study aimed at assessing the willingness of undergraduate students of dental medicine to participate in active learning activities rather than the typical passive-style teaching-learning educational process.

METHODS

Three active implementation-learning activities, namely International Group Discussions (IGD), Student-Teacher Experience (STE) and Role Play Activities (RPA) were included in the Dental English course in a classroom setting at a dental school in Japan. Students had to choose between participating in the activity or taking the final examination. Two hundred and three third-year undergraduate dental students participated over a 5-year period from October 2013 to March 2017. For IGD, the researchers assigned students to a topic and grouped them with visiting international exchange students. For STE, researchers gave students teacher-prepared presentation slides on basic dental topics, which they presented in front of their classmates. For RPA, students had to do prepared role-play and impromptu role play. Peer and teacher feedbacks of the activities were given to all students. At the end of the course, the students evaluated the active learning activities and wrote their comments in a free entry survey.

RESULTS

All 203 students participated in the active learning activities confirming the changing learning needs of Japanese students in this dental school. The most common comment was that the class was interesting, fun, an easy-to-understand way to learn dental terms, and a safe way to express themselves in the English language.

CONCLUSION

The majority of Japanese students preferred the active learning style. The study revealed that students reported greater engagement and better learning with proper guidance and time to prepare for the activities.

Enhancing students' active learning and self-efficacy using mobile technology in medical English classes

PURPOSE

This study investigated student experiences of mobile technology in a medical English course using a free mobile classroom application, Socrative and its impact on student learning to help them achieve the competency expected in the course.

METHODS

Questionnaires were administered of year 2 medical students enrolled in a medical English course between 2016 and 2017 to investigate their experience in using Socrative. Learning outcomes were assessed by comparing students' academic performance with that of the 2015 cohort, who had taken the same course without using mobile technology, and also by measuring changes in their self-efficacy in English over time during the course.

RESULTS

This study found students' positive perceptions of and overall satisfaction with their experience in using mobile technology in the medical English course. There were no differences in the academic performance between the study cohort and the comparison group. The ratio of students who were in the remediation program after the mid-term examination was 11%, whereas the remediation ratio of the 2015 cohort was 21%. Students' self-efficacy in English improved significantly in the writing and reading domains (p<0.05).

CONCLUSION

This study found several benefits of using Socrative in the medical English course. Socrative fostered the classroom interaction by encouraging input from every student and sharing it instantly with the whole class. There was also learning improvement with the use of Socrative. Furthermore, it has the potential to enhance assessment by offering more various forms of assessment than that of conventional audience response systems.

Medical language proficiency: A discussion of interprofessional language competencies and potential for patient risk

In increasingly multilingual healthcare environments worldwide, ensuring accurate, effective communication is requisite. Language proficiency is essential, particularly medical language proficiency. Medical language is a universal construct in healthcare, the shared language of health and allied health professions. It is highly evolved, career-specific, technical and cultural-bound-a language for specific purposes. Its function differs significantly from that of a standard language. Proficiency requires at minimum, a common understanding of discipline-specific jargon, abstracts, euphemisms, abbreviations; acronyms. An optimal medical language situation demands a level of competency beyond the superficial wherein one can convey or interpret deeper meanings, distinguish themes, voice opinion, and follow directions precisely. It necessitates the use of clarity, and the ability to understand both lay and formal language-characteristics not essential to standard language. Proficiency influences professional discourse and can have the potential to positively or negatively affect patient outcomes. While risks have been identified when there is language discordance between care provider and patient, almost nothing has been said about this within care teams themselves. This article will do so in anticipation that care providers, regulators, employers, and researchers will acknowledge potential language-based communication barriers and work towards resolutions. This is predicated on the fact that the growing interest in language and communication in healthcare today appears to be rested in globalization and increasingly linguistically diverse patient populations. Consideration of the linguistically diverse healthcare workforce is absent. An argument will be posited that if potential risks to patient safety exist and there are potentials for disengagement from care by patients when health providers do not speak their languages then logically these language-based issues can also be true for a care team of mixed linguistic backgrounds. Members may disengage from each other or adverse events may occur as a result of misunderstanding or other language-based confounds. While the greater goal of the article is to address the issues of medical language across languages, English and medical English are used to illustrate points. Questions will be posed to stimulate thought and identify a need for research. Recommendations include collaboration between the health and language disciplines.