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OpenMinds on Mental Health Literacy: A Reflective Journey of a Medical Student
- Jashan Selvakumar, Jiann Lin Loo, May Honey Ohn
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- Journal:
- BJPsych Open / Volume 8 / Issue S1 / June 2022
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 20 June 2022, p. S34
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Aims
As a medical student from a local university, the first author undertook a mental health education course, i.e. OpenMinds at the King's College University. The aim of the course is to improve literacy about key mental health issues that children and adolescents face and the stigma against mental illnesses. Upon completion of training, a medical student will be able to lead intervention workshops to share the mental health knowledge with local school audiences on these issues, promote early detection of mental illnesses among the audiences and their peers with the aim of improving health-seeking behaviour by providing information of where to access help to reduce the duration of untreated illness. This article is aimed to describe the personal reflective experience of a medical student and the lessons learnt.
MethodsThe OpenMinds course was an eight-week workshop on important mental health topics such as depression, anxiety, coping strategies and psychosis. This was followed by a session on effective teaching detailing various techniques including maintaining children's concentration, increasing engagement by utilising different learning techniques, safeguarding and maintaining well-being during conversations about difficult and sensitive topics.
ResultsAfter attending the OpenMinds educational workshop, the first author had delivered three workshops (one primary school and two secondary schools) as part of the bigger organising team from the other university. Overall, the verbal feedback from the local schools on the workshops was positive (Kirkpatrick's evaluation outcome level one). The challenge faced was virtual teaching due to the COVID-19 pandemic which meant not being able to read facial expressions or body language while delivering information. This limitation could be mitigated by having a trained teacher moderating the sessions on-site and making sure the workshops ran smoothly. Online lessons emphasised the use of technology which was proven to be useful as videos and other audiovisual aids had the ability to keep the children engaged and provide different sources of learning concurrently.
ConclusionHaving participated in this course, the first author has learned teaching skills and a better way of communicating mental health issues to vulnerable audiences. Although face-to-face workshops are still not possible at the time of writing, the first author is keen to set up an OpenMinds branch at his university and be able to share with his fellow colleagues these skills in the future.
Web Pages on Mindfulness-Based Interventions: A Review on the Different Training of Third-Wave Psychotherapies Available in the United Kingdom
- Jiann Lin Loo, Jashan Selvakumar, May Honey Ohn, Asha Dhandapani, Sathyan Soundararajan, Sahar Ali, Nikhil Gaurishankar
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- Journal:
- BJPsych Open / Volume 8 / Issue S1 / June 2022
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 20 June 2022, p. S71
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With extensive evidence and track record on efficiency, third-wave psychotherapies, i.e. mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs), have gained popularity in the United Kingdom (UK) as the mainstream tool for mental health and well-being. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of MBI training has shifted from physical meetings to online to improve access nationally. To date, there is limited data on the differences of online MBIs available in the UK. This web pages review is aimed to elucidate the available resources for online training on MBIs in the UK.
MethodsGoogle Search engine was used to identify web pages providing MBI training in the UK from February 2021 to March 2021. The search words used were “mindfulness”, “acceptance commitment therapy”, “dialectical behaviour therapy”, “DBT”, “Compassion focused therapy”, “CFT”, “England”, “Northern Ireland”, “Scotland”, “Wales”, and “United Kingdom”. The search word “ACT” was omitted due to a high number of irrelevant search results. Inclusion criteria were any web page providing mindfulness training in the English language, based in the UK. Exclusion criteria were web pages that were not from the UK with limited information and the web page was not about the provision of mindfulness training. Given the high number of web pages appearing in the Google Search for each of the localities, further search was stopped when all ten web pages that appeared on a Google search page were all excluded.
ResultsThe total number of web pages returned from searches was 23,030,000 of which were 13.1 million for England, 2.89 million for Scotland, 3.09 million for Wales, 2.18 million for Northern Ireland, and 1,770,000 were unspecified. Only 165 web pages offering MBI training were included. Among those, 57% were for the general public while 30% had information for both professionals and the public. The majority of them, i.e. 65% offered online training courses when only 25% of them offered both online and face-to-face training. There were 25% of web pages offering free basic courses for the public. There was a similar split between the group, individual and mixed training.
ConclusionThere is a significant amount of MBI training resources available online for both public and professionals. One interesting finding is that a significant portion of them provide free basic training which is very encouraging and certainly has a positive impact on the accessibility of mindfulness education during the pandemic disruption.
Young Academician Network (YAN) Project: Creating a Sustainable Ecosystem of Training for Early-Career Healthcare Student Researchers
- Jiann Lin Loo, Jashan Selvakumar, Sahar Ali, May Honey Ohn
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- Journal:
- BJPsych Open / Volume 8 / Issue S1 / June 2022
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 20 June 2022, pp. S34-S35
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A lot of healthcare students are interested to have early involvement in research and one of the common obstacles is getting access to a mentor who can help them venture into academic work. Therefore, the Young Academician Network (YAN) project has been conceptualised in November 2020 after an opportunistic email communication between a medical student and a psychiatrist registrar, with the vision of creating a sustainable ecosystem of mentoring in research. This article is aimed to elucidate the journey of the YAN project and the lessons learned after a year.
MethodsThe word YAN originates from the Mandarin word for “research”, which is the theme for the project. The mission is to train healthcare student research leaders who will be able to lead their juniors into the field of research. It began with a weekly hourly online meeting between the student and registrar with the agenda of brainstorming research ideas, reflections from the previous meeting, reviewing the progress of tasks, and discussions of topics that were relevant to research. All explored research topics were discussed based on SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound) goals to ensure they were feasible since there was no external funding involved.
ResultsThe YAN project had successfully published one full article in a peer-reviewed journal and two proceedings in an international congress within a year. Meanwhile, there are two ongoing projects with abstracts produced for submission to different international conferences. The lack and restriction of resources led to the promotion of creativity rather than stunted growth of the project. The main challenge of the project was the difficulty in meeting the dateline due to the busy timetable of different members. Other challenges included the difficulty of striking a balance between vision and reality.
ConclusionAs this is a not-for-profit initiative, a high level of motivation is required to keep the project moving forward. Although the number of participants has not grown significantly, this pilot project has at least shown its feasibility without any funding support. There is a plan for further expansion of the project to recruit more members once the foundation of this project has been established with an adequate number of publications. A more structured and systematic evaluation of this project is needed to provide vital information for further improvement of this project.
Is it possible to use research to learn psychiatry from scratch: a reflective self-study of a pre-clinical year medical student
- Jashan Selvakumar, Jiann Lin Loo, May Honey Ohn, Gabby Kelly
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- Journal:
- BJPsych Open / Volume 7 / Issue S1 / June 2021
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 18 June 2021, p. S156
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Despite the abundance of opportunities available for medical students to explore the field of psychiatry, active immersion through experiential learning has proven to be difficult for pre-clinical year students as a result of a busy time table and the need to wait for psychiatry postings during the clinical years. Hence, the question of “how to implement experiential learning of psychiatry in pre-clinical years” arises. This study is aimed to elucidate the attempts that have been made to use research as a proximate approach to learn psychiatry experientially, focusing specifically on the challenges faced and lessons learned by a pre-clinical medical student.
MethodThis self-study outlined the informal three-months learning-by-doing journey of a year-one medical student, supervised by a psychiatrist registrar. Employing research as a proximate approach of experiential learning for psychiatry was explored based on reflection from discussion during supervision meetings and messages exchange. The agreed learning method was an active involvement in research projects on psychiatry topics, with the learning outcome of producing publications.
ResultThe challenges faced included: 1) the difficulty associated with striking a balance between an ambitious project with high impact versus a feasible smaller project to keep both parties motivated through the means of short-term accomplishment; 2) the ongoing requirement for learning process adjustment to build the foundational knowledge essential for progress. Through active and deliberate effort, every step in the process was found to be an opportunity for active learning. Literature review, for example, was used to build the understanding of psychiatry topics and practise critical appraisal skills, while allowing for the recognition of knowledge gaps, which ultimately encouraged future research idea synthesis. The process of writing and submitting a manuscript was used to learn publication-relevant skills including: journal impact calculation, referencing, indexing and abstracting services, and publication ethics. Certain future proof skills were also developed, including literacy in information and communication technology which improved efficiency of research, problem solving and decision making. This was done using pros and cons whenever difficulties were faced.
ConclusionAlthough research is not a comprehensive substitute for clinical posting in the process of learning psychiatry, the lessons learned from psychiatry research can potentially serve as an initial exploration tool for preclinical-year medical students interested in the field. The stimulating process has found to be effective in stimulating further interest in psychiatry but maintaining it will be the next challenge.
What can be found in the spam folder? a self-study from junior researchers in psychiatry
- Nikhil Gauri Shankar, Jashan Selvakumar, Jiann Lin Loo, May Honey Ohn, Sze Hung Chua, Asha Dhandapani, Manjula Simiyon, Jawad Raja
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- Journal:
- BJPsych Open / Volume 7 / Issue S1 / June 2021
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 18 June 2021, pp. S250-S251
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Thriving on the pressure of “publish or perish” experienced by academicians, the industry of predatory publishers with dubious quality has mushroomed and gained their notoriety. The battle of uncovering predatory publishers, including Beall's list, has proven to be tough given the huge monetary gain generated by the predatory publishers. It may be difficult for an inexperienced junior researcher to identify those predatory publishers’ soliciting emails, which may disguise as a reputable journal's article-commissioning process. To date, there is a limited systematic approach to identify such emails. Hence, this research is aimed to describe the common features of soliciting emails from publishers which appeared to be predatory.
MethodThis self-study involved reviewing the content of emails in the spam folder of authors, a team of junior researchers in psychiatry, for a month. Emails included in this study were soliciting emails relevant to publications and the following were reviewed: types of solicitation, sentences used, strategies used, and information available in the public domain of their webpages. Informative types of emails were excluded.
ResultThe solicitation could include: 1) request for a manuscript to be published a journal article, 2) request for a thesis to be published as a book, 3) request to write for a book chapter, 4) invitation to be an editorial member or a reviewer with the offer of free publishing, 5) invitation to be a speaker for a conference, and 6) proofreading services. The publisher may cite a published article of the author from another journal, which was the source where they identified the author's email. Common strategies used for solicitation included: 1) promising a fast-tracked and guaranteed publication, 2) using compliments that appeared to be inappropriate, 3) repetitive emails, and 4) using argumentum ad passiones to induce guilt. The common features of the webpages of those publishers included: 1) open access publishing as the only option, 2) extensive list of indexing services excluding well-established indexing agencies, and 3) the publisher has a huge collection of journals in different disciplines.
ConclusionIt is hoped that these findings will help junior researchers in psychiatry to stay vigilant to avoid falling into the trap of predatory publishers, which may result in financial loss and loss of work to plagiarism. Total eradication of those predatory soliciting emails is unlikely despite the advancement of spam filtering technology, which necessitates a more united effort from different stakeholders to come out with a probable solution.