Stress In Medical School

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Stress, is a vague term and in its essence used wantonly to describe a state of physical, emotional, cognitive and behavioral responses. Usually, to events that one considers as threatening or challenging. This is viewed by many as a normal occurrence needed for adaption and survival. It affects all people all over the world with no regards for one’s race, colour or ethnicity, including academic or professional background. This is a rather comprehensive definition as proposed by Ciccarelli & White (2009) in their book entitled Psychology, 2nd edition. Stress as viewed by Weitin (2007) is a complex concept which is explained as any circumstance that threatens or is perceived to threaten one’s well- being, thereby, task one’s coping skills.…show more content…
To achieve this various learning modules are used. This includes tutorials, apprenticeships & close mentoring. The volume of study material is overwhelming and thus students spend a considerable amount of time, both during the day & at night to achieve expected academic mile stones. Therefore these programs may have unintended negative consequences on the students physical & mental well-being. New postulations seem to suggest a pre-morbid state of burn-out culminating in severe stress during the transition from medical school to becoming doctors. This is to say, stress in doctors has its origin from medical school (Sinking ship for SA interns, 2009). Reported stress levels amongst medical students range from 25-90% (Sherina, Rampal & Kaneson, 2004). Other results show reported levels of stress among medical students range from 25% to 75% (Mosley et al, 1994; Sherina et al, 2004). Students at all levels experience degrees of stress depending on their academic workload and the environment (Esia-Donkoh and Yelkpieri 2011). A survey carried out in 9 medical schools in the United States of America showed that 47% of students had at least 1major issue related to mental health or substance use and that stress affects 26% within this group (Guthrie et al,…show more content…
It is worth to highlight that several medical education constituencies have emphasized the importance of teaching stress management and self-care skills to medical students (Steven et al., 2003; Susan et al., 2007). Studies revealed that the stressors affecting medical students well-being seems to be related to the medical training especially related to academic matters (Aktekin et al., 2001; Guthrie et al, 1995; Kaufman et al., 1998; Saipanish, 2003; Yusoff et al., 2010,
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