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All colleges of medicine in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) adopt English as a language of instructions. This study aimed to examine medical students' views on introducing medical terminology in Arabic within an English-based curriculum.

This descriptive study targeted preclinical second- and fourth-year students in the College of Medicine and Medical Sciences at the Arabian Gulf University, during the academic year 2022–2023 (n = 407). Within the pharmacology teaching material in unit I (second year) and unit VIII (fourth year), which are taught in English, students were provided with medical terms in Arabic. At the end of these two units, students' views were sought by using a self-administered questionnaire.

The number of respondents was 263 (response rate 64.1%: 22.2% males, 77.8% females). Most participants received their school education mainly in Arabic (78.8%). A significant percentage of students believed that providing Arabic terms helped their learning (79.8%). If pharmacology is taught exclusively in English, majority of the students anticipated to face difficulties when explaining drug treatment to their patients in the future (71.3%). Most respondents expected this intervention to help them communicate with patients (86.7%), and preferred to include it in the clinical skills training (82.2%). The second-year students and those whose school education was mainly in Arabic were more likely to agree to the intervention (p < 0.05 for both).

The introduction of medical terms in Arabic is an acceptable alternative to complete Arabization, and is believed to help students in their learning and communication with their patients.

Medical students experience higher rates of mental illness than the general population. With competition rising for success in medical school, and residency, increasing incidence of distress are leading this population to experience higher rates of thoughts of dropping out of school, and even suicide. Since many stigmas deter medical students from receiving mental health counseling, such as the perceived inability to handle the stresses of medical school, and the potential lack of competitiveness for residencies if reported, prevention of mental illness may be a better course to take in reducing prevalence in this population. Regular exercise has demonstrated a positive effect on not only promoting physical health, but also mental health. Exercise encourages a healthy mood, positive self esteem, and better cognition, while decreasing the chances of depression, anxiety, and burnout. Implementing exercise time into medical school curriculums, just like the basic sciences, albeit for less time in the day, could provide a feasible way to ensure that all students are taking time to partake in this important activity for their well being. Though medical schools are rigid with attempts to make changes in their curriculum, thirty minutes a day, three to five times a week of exercise of the students' choice not only is more cost effective than counseling, but it also reduces the chances that they will experience burnout, which if left untreated could transcend into a compromised training experience.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on medical education and training, with many medical schools and training programs having to adapt to remote or online learning, social distancing measures and other challenges. This paper aimed to examine the disruption for clinical training, as it has reduced the opportunities for students and trainees to gain hands-on experience and interact with patients in person.

The ethnographic qualitative research design was chosen as the research methodology. Using Gibbs' reflective cycle, the researcher explored the psychiatry clerks' (final-year medical students) reflections on the disruption of their clinical training during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The findings demonstrated that the students had a significant psychological impact on their coping capacities as the crisis progressed from shock and depression to resilience. The students being the key stakeholders provided a concrete foundation for the development of a framework for improving practices during uncertain times.

Students' reflections provided valuable insight into the pandemic’s impact on their psychosocial lives with uncertainty and incapacity to cope up with changing stressful dynamics. The results will assist in planning how to best support medical students' well-being during interruptions of their educational process brought about by similar future crises.

The purpose of this paper is to make the case for bringing compassion to students in educational settings, preschool through graduate school (PK-20).

First, the author defines what is meant by “compassion” and differentiates it from the related constructs. Next, the author discusses the importance of bringing compassion into education, thinking specifically about preschool, K-12 (elementary and middle school/junior high/high school), college students, and graduate students (e.g. law, medical, nurses, counselors and therapists-in-training). The author then reviews the scant empirical literature on compassion in education and makes recommendations for future research. In the final section, the author makes specific and practical recommendations for the classroom (e.g. how to teach and evaluate compassion in PK-20).

While there is a fair amount of research on compassion with college students, and specifically regarding compassion for oneself, as the author reviews in this paper, the field is wide open in terms of empirical research with other students and examining other forms of compassion.

This is not a formal review or meta-analysis.

This paper will be a useful resource for teachers and those interested in PK-20 education.

This paper highlights the problems and opportunities for bringing compassion into education settings.

To date, no review of compassion in PK-20 exists.

The teaching and learning of anatomy has experienced a significant paradigm shift. The present study assessed the level of knowledge in anatomy in medical postgraduate students and explored the impact of interventions in the form of anatomical videos on knowledge obtained. An awareness of the importance of human anatomy for clinical skills was created to ensure a certain level of competence be achieved by the end of the anatomy course.

Postgraduate medical students were recruited from various specialties on voluntary basis. The first step was to conduct a preliminary screening exam to determine the level of anatomical knowledge. The students were then divided into two groups at random, one of which received no intervention (the control group), and the other of which watched the videos with content that was pertinent to the practical demonstrations (intervention). To assess the effects of the video intervention, a post-test was administered to all students.

Both spot tests (SPOTs) and short answer question (SAQ) components for scores of all the regions from the intervention groups were comparable to the scores obtained by the post-test control group, although the findings were not significant (p > 0.05). However, the intervention group from the abdomen (ABD) region did perform significantly better (p < 0.05) than the screening test score.

The results of the research study imply that interventions like anatomical videos can bridge the postgraduate trainee’s anatomy knowledge gap in a practical method which will immensely help in increasing their knowledge.

The purpose of this study is to assess the prevalence of burnout syndrome and its associated factors among medical students at Jazan University, Jazan, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 440 randomly selected medical students at Jazan University. The questionnaire used for this study was based on the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory.

The overall prevalence of burnout was estimated at 60.2% (95% CI 55.6–64.8). The prevalence was higher for females (64.1%) than for males (56.2%) but without statistically significant differences (p > 0.05). On average, the students scored the highest averages in the personal burnout category, followed by the study-related and client-related burnout categories. In the multivariate analysis, a lower age (beta = −3.17, p = 0.026), female (beta = −0.896, p = 0.016), and having better burnout knowledge (beta = 0.710, p = 0.025) predict significantly higher personal burnout.

It is necessary to implement strategies to reduce the incidence of burnout among medical students for the sake of a better quality of life for future doctors.

There is a high prevalence of burnout among Jazan’s medical students.

Students pursuing different professional courses at the higher education level during 2021–2022 saw the first-time occurrence of a pandemic in the form of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and their mental health was affected. Many works are available in the literature to assess mental health severity. However, it is necessary to identify the affected students early for effective treatment.

Predictive analytics, a part of machine learning (ML), helps with early identification based on mental health severity levels to aid clinical psychologists. As a case study, engineering and medical course students were comparatively analysed in this work as they have rich course content and a stricter evaluation process than other streams. The methodology includes an online survey that obtains demographic details, academic qualifications, family details, etc. and anxiety and depression questions using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). The responses acquired through social media networks are analysed using ML algorithms – support vector machines (SVMs) (robust handling of health information) and J48 decision tree (DT) (interpretability/comprehensibility). Also, random forest is used to identify the predictors for anxiety and depression.

The results show that the support vector classifier produces outperforming results with classification accuracy of 100%, 1.0 precision and 1.0 recall, followed by the J48 DT classifier with 96%. It was found that medical students are affected by anxiety and depression marginally more when compared with engineering students.

The entire work is dependent on the social media-displayed online questionnaire, and the participants were not met in person. This indicates that the response rate could not be evaluated appropriately. Due to the medical restrictions imposed by COVID-19, which remain in effect in 2022, this is the only method found to collect primary data from college students. Additionally, students self-selected themselves to participate in this survey, which raises the possibility of selection bias.

The responses acquired through social media networks are analysed using ML algorithms. This will be a big support for understanding the mental issues of the students due to COVID-19 and can taking appropriate actions to rectify them. This will improve the quality of the learning process in higher education in Oman.

Furthermore, this study aims to provide recommendations for mental health screening as a regular practice in educational institutions to identify undetected students.

Comparing the mental health issues of two professional course students is the novelty of this work. This is needed because both studies require practical learning, long hours of work, etc.

Stigmatising attitudes towards persons with mental illness are commonly reported among health professionals. Familiarity with mental illness has been reported to improve these attitudes. Very few studies have compared future medical doctors' attitudes toward types of mental illness, substance use disorders and physical illness. A cross-sectional survey of 5th and 6th year medical students as well as recently graduated medical doctors was conducted in April 2011. The 12-item level of contact report and the Attitude towards Mental Illness Questionnaire were administered. Partici -pants endorsed stigmatising attitudes towards mental illness; with attitudes more adverse for schizophrenia compared to depression. Stigmatising attitudes were similarly endorsed for substance use disorders. Paradoxically, attitudes towards HIV/AIDS were positive and similar to diabetes mellitus. Increasing familiarity with mental illness was weakly associated with better attitudes towards depression and schizophrenia. Stigmatising attitudes towards depression and schizophrenia are common among future doctors. Efforts to combat stigma are urgently needed and should be promoted among medical students and recent medical graduates.

Medical schools aspire to graduate doctors who are competent in interpreting, conducting and publishing scientific research. Hence, the purpose of the paper is explore the impact of a structured compulsory community-oriented, project-based research program in the undergraduate medical curriculum on medical graduates’ future careers, publications and motivation for scientific research.

An online questionnaire was sent through the Alumni Association of the Arabian Gulf University (AGU) to medical graduates who have valid email addresses, seeking information on their scientific productivity along with demographic and current employment data. Responses were collated and analyzed using a standard statistical software package. The chi-square test and p-value were calculated. P-value <0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Completed forms were received from 91 medical graduates. In this sample, almost a quarter of the respondents have published a research paper out of their undergraduate research project, and about 50% have published at least one paper (as main or co-author) after graduation. Both demographic and medical specialty was not related to the doctor's perception of the benefits they have attained from the compulsory undergraduate research program. However, medical graduates who are at senior levels in their medical careers and those who are employed in secondary healthcare are significantly more likely to publish research papers.

The compulsory community-oriented, project-based research program in AGU has positively contributed to the research productivity of graduates, and it would be worthwhile to include such programs as an integral part of the undergraduate medical curriculum.