Departmental sources Background:Physicians who have healthy lifestyles can provide quality healthcare to their patients and keep themselves healthy. There is little data on the prevalence of drinking behaviors and problems among East Asian medical students. Here, we explored alcohol use and drinking motives among medical students in Korea. Material/Methods:A questionnaire-based, multicenter, cross-sectional study was carried out in 323 students from 5 medical colleges in Korea between July and October 2016. We used the Korean version of the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) and an anonymous, self-administered questionnaire that included demographic characteristics, smoking status, consumption of alcohol, and drinking motives. Results:The mean AUDIT score was 9.8±7.5 for males and 6.3±5.4 for females. Heavy drinking (75.9%) and binge drinking (56.0%) were very high among Korean medical students. Female medical students drank as much as male students, and much more than other women. The probability that a student would be a binge drinker was 2.72 times higher for a smoker than a non-smoker. The scores for drinking frequency, alcohol intake at one time, heavy drinking, binge drinking, and alcohol dependence symptoms were highest in the group who had "enhancement drinking motives". Conclusions:Heavy drinking and binge drinking are common among both male and female medical students in Korea and this behavior is associated with smoking and enhancement drinking motives. Medical schools should consider implementing effective interventions to prevent and reduce problem drinking among medical students.

Purpose: This study was to examine whether medical students' academic motivation, general academic stress influence their perceived academic performance.Methods: Of the 606 medical students surveyed from two universities in Seoul and Incheon, 308 completed and returned the questionnaires yielding a total response rate of 50.8%. The final sample consisted of 129 premedical students (41.9%) and 179 medical students (58.1%). Of these, 189 were male (61.4%), 94 were female (30.5%), and 25 did not identify their gender (8.1%). Their average age was 22.43 years. Measures of students' academic motivation, general academic stress, medical stress, and their perceptions of academic performance were obtained.Results: Pearson's correlations indicated that students' perceptions of academic performance were associated with academic motivation, general academic stress, and medical stress. It was observed that there were gender differences in 'perceptions of academic performance,' 'intrinsic academic motivation,' and 'extrinsic academic motivation.' Females scored themselves higher in 'perceptions of academic performance,' and 'intrinsic academic motivation,' but lower in 'extrinsic academic motivation' than did the males. Moreover, premedical students had higher 'perceptions of academic performance' and 'extrinsic academic motivation' scores, but lower 'general academic stress' and 'medical stress' scores than medical students. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that the 'amotivation' subscale from the academic motivation measure and 'social-psychological' subscale from the general academic stress measure predicted the perceptions of academic performances of the medical students after controlling for gender and education level.Conclusion: Medical educators need to be aware that medical students' perceived stress and their academic motivation affects their academic performance which can have a tremendous impact on their quality of life and psychological well-being. Perhaps an academic adjustment program needs to be developed to reduce students' perceived stress in medical training.

Objectives: Stress can affect learning and memories in students. Prior stress-related studies on students were conducted mainly through surveys. So, we investigated how heart rate variability (HRV)-measured stress related to academic achievement in medical students during clerkship. Subjects and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted. HRV measurements were performed in 97 third-year medical students during their family medicine clerkship course. Data on written and skilled exam scores of the end of the school year were also collected. We assessed association between HRV-measured stress and written/skilled exam scores. Results: Written exam scores showed a positive correlation with standard deviation of the N-N intervals (SDNN) (r=0.245, p=0.016), sympathetic nervous system/parasympathetic nervous system (SNS/PNS) balance (r=0.218, p=0.033), and stress index (r=0.381, p=0.004). Students with an unhealthy SDNN, with a dominant SNS, and a high stress index had a higher scorer in written exams than students with a healthy SDNN, a balanced SNS/PNS, and a normal stress index, respectively (p=0.004, 0.018, and 0.012, respectively). Moreover, skilled exam scores were negatively correlated with body mass index (r=-0.249, p=0.014), and were higher in female students (r=0.240, p=0.018). Students with an abnormal autonomic balance diagram (ABD) had a higher score than students with a normal ABD (p=0.03). Conclusion: This study shows that medical students with higher stress measured by HRV have higher academic achievement, especially in written exam. Further studies are needed to reconfirm the results of this study and to assess the long-term effects of HRV measured stress on medical education.

This review presents information on changes in the accreditation standards of medical schools in Korea by the Korean Institute of Medical Education and Evaluation (KIMEE) from 2000 to 2019. Specifically, the following aspects are explained: the development process, setting principles and directions, evaluation items, characteristics of the standards, and validity testing over the course of 4 cycles. The first cycle of accreditation (2000–2005) focused on ensuring the minimum requirements for the educational environment. The evaluation criteria emphasized the core elements of medical education, including facilities and human resources. The second cycle of accreditation (2007–2010) emphasized universities’ commitment to social accountability and the pursuit of excellence in medical education. It raised the importance of qualitative standards for judging the content and quality of education. In the post-second accreditation cycle (2012–2018) which means third accreditation cycle, accreditation criteria were developed to standardize the educational environment and programs and to be used for curriculum development in order to continually improve the quality of basic medical education. Most recently, the ASK 2019 (Accreditation Standards of KIMEE 2019) accreditation cycle focused on qualitative evaluations in accordance with the World Federation of Medical Education’s accreditation criteria to reach the international level of basic medical education, which emphasizes the need for a student-centered curriculum, communication with society, and evaluation through a comprehensive basic medical education course. The KIMEE has developed a basic medical education evaluation and accreditation system in a step-by-step manner, as outlined above. Understanding previous processes will be helpful for the future development of accreditation criteria for medical schools in Korea.

사회네트워크 분석을 활용한 한국의학교육 학회지의 연구 동향 분석 1 전북대학교 의학전문대학원 의학교육실, 2 전북대학교 사범대학 과학교육학부 유효현 1 , 신세인 2Purpose: This aim of this study is to examine trends in medical education research in the Korean Journal of Medical Education (KJME) and suggest improvements for medical education research. Methods: The main variables were keywords from research papers that were published in KJME. Abstracts of papers (n=499) that were published from 1991 through 2015 were analyzed by social network analysis (NetMiner 4.0) a common research method for trends in academic subjects.