Srinagar, Dec 25: The medical colleges of valley are becoming ‘boiling pots’ of stress as around 20 percent of students are believed to have ‘psychological morbidity’, for which experts blame the outdated and vastness curriculum, and non-aptitude of the students towards the subject besides other social and genetic problems.
 As such no proper study has been done so far to quantify the extent of stress among students in valley based medical colleges, but valley psychiatrists agreed that “the rate of stress is very high among medical students”.
 “Medical students have been forced to study vast syllabus that too obsolete due to which they get distressed over poor academic performance, or conceived threat from teachers,” experts told Greater Kashmir.
 According to them others frequently occurring sources of stress were high parental expectations, dissatisfaction with the class lecture, lack of entertainment and recreation in the institution, frequent examinations, becoming a doctor (expectations from all fronts).
 Valley’s known Psychiatrist Dr Arshad Hussain observed that around 2 percent students were facing psychological morbidity due to academic reasons as “they have no aptitude towards the medical subject.”
 “They wanted to do something else but a collective societal pressure forced them to join MBBS. They don’t enjoy their studies and are prone to suffer psychologically,” he said.
 Dr Arshad said quantifying the stress that students face in Medical Colleges and establishing a causal relationship with psychological morbidity was a difficult proposition. “But the qualitatively medical colleges are boiling pots of stress and strain,” he said.
 As per consultant psychiatry Dr Maajid, “The events in the college are hardly life threatening, but they hurt their self-esteem, personal identity, and future career plans.”
 “The overall prevalence of psychological morbidity was 20.9 percent and was higher among students whose parents were medical doctors,” Dr Maajid, who comes across two to three cases every week, said quoting a study done on Medical Students of South Asia. “This applies for medical students of Kashmir also,” he added.
 The mind of a depressed medical student desires to rejoice in their lives, while would be doctors struggles with bacteria and viruses, drug pharmacokinetics and dynamics, and stretch his imagination in the microscopic world of vague and scrutinize the bizarre architecture of pathological specimens, an assistant professor of microbiology Dr Rubina Lone expressed.
 “Throughout the five tough years in a medical college confusions amid disagreements atrociously distract them. They get used to the idea of flunking, supplementary exams and more flunking,” she said.
 Dr Lone believed that there should a shift from “classical way of teaching to problem based learning. “There is lack of integrated approach in our learning as the present method is more concerned about knowledge accusation than a knowledge application,” she said.
 Coordinator Medical Education Unit (MEU) Dr Sheikh Sajjad stressed the need to introduce composite learning method in the medical education. “It has been observed that composite teaching methodology increased student involvement in the course. By reducing the use of passive lecture format students develop better understanding of the subject and become active, independent learners and problem solvers,” he said.
 “Through this method we can improve the academic performance of problem-learners at the pre-final MBBS using multiple teaching strategies in a medical school,” he said while quoting his survey done in 2009 with medical students in Kashmir.
 According to him the composite teaching methodology could turn problem-learners into problem-solvers.
 The result of Dr Sajjad’s study revealed that over 50 percent performance improved in the ‘problem-learners’ who were ‘under-achievers’ before exposed to the composite learning method.
 While there is gloom of stress floating in the medical colleges, the Psychiatrists expressed hope in coping mechanism used by the students. “They (students) generally use active coping mechanism. Alcohol or drugs is a least used coping strategy,” they claimed.

Lastupdate on : Sun, 25 Dec 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 25 Dec 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Mon, 26 Dec 2011 00:00:00 IST