Empathy is considered to be associated with better patient compliance, satisfaction, and clinical outcomes. The aim of the study is to measure and examine empathy among a sample of undergraduate medical students of Bangladesh. It was a cross-sectional study and all the medical students of first through fifth year enrolled at Chattagram Maa-O-Shishu Hospital Medical College during the study period of 2014 were surveyed. Participants anonymously completed the Jefferson Scale of Empathy Medical Student version translated into Bengali language, a valid and reliable 20-item self-administered questionnaire. Principal component factor analysis with varimax rotation and Cronbach's alpha coefficient were calculated to check validity and reliability of the scale. ANOVA was used to examine the differences in empathy between gender, academic years, and specialty preferences. The mean empathy score was 110.41 ± 13.59. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.88. There were significant associations between gender and empathy scores. The level of empathy in medical students gradually increases after clinical training in medical college. A nonsignificant difference was found between empathy scores and specialty preferences. It is suggested that the medical curriculum in Bangladesh should include more extensive program to promote empathy and other humanistic values among the medical students.

Background: Physicians formally receive education regarding antimicrobials and microbial resistance during a 5-6 year curriculum of the undergraduate medical program. However, the once magical bullet of antibiotics is now threatened by AR, which has become a significant hazard to global health. Thus, a doctor must possess the adequate knowledge to select an antibiotic or other drug for use in a particular disease. This issue is not currently being addressed in the undergraduate curriculum resulting in irrational prescribing. Therefore, it is essential to possess a comprehensive knowledge regarding drugs, including antimicrobials at an undergraduate level. Currently, there is no comprehensive evaluation of medical students' perception of AR in Bangladesh. This was the driving force to conduct this study and to identify gaps in KAP of medical students about AR, as well as to enrich the medical curriculum. Methods: This is a cross-sectional, randomized, questionnaire-based study. Data were collected using a validated instrument. Results: 107 students were selected using a quota sampling technique. A total of 107 participants (32.71% male and 67.29% female) attended the study. The response rate was 100%. Out of the cohort; 37.38%, 30.84%, and 31.78% were from the Year-III, Year-IV, and Year-V respectively. The participants felt more confident in 'Making an accurate diagnosis of infection/ sepsis.' Conclusion: Our study population found to be suffering from a lack of confidence partially due to a gap in their knowledge about the proper selection of antimicrobials.

BackgroundBacterial resistance due to antibiotic misuse is reported every day. Such threat calls for a consensus to develop new strategies to prevent the development of antibiotic resistance of bacteria. Medical doctors must play a pivotal role to control and prevent the misuse of antibiotics. There were complaints that prescribers are lacking behind in updates and advancement in the field. To address such knowledge gap, a study was conducted to know the views of interns on the current antibiotic resistance situation in a teaching hospital in Bangladesh.MethodsThis study was a cross-sectional, randomized, and questionnaire-based survey. Interns of the medicine, gynecology, and surgery departments of Chattagram Maa O Shishu Hospital Medical College were the study population.ResultsOut of 50 respondents, 98% would like more education on antibiotic selection. All respondents believed that prescribing inappropriate or unnecessary antibiotics was professionally unethical. Ninety percent of the participants were confident in making an accurate diagnosis of infection. Eighty-four percent of them were confident about dosage schedule. In all, 98% participants thought that antibiotic resistance is a national problem and 64% of the respondents thought that same problem also existed in their hospital. Study participants were of the view that 41%–60% of antibiotic usages are irrational in Bangladesh. Fifty-eight percent of the study population thought that antimicrobial resistance (AR) would be a greater problem in the future.ConclusionThe interns believe that there is a knowledge gap on AR. More emphasis should be given to AR and its implications in the undergraduate curriculum. Latest national and international guidelines for antimicrobial therapy and resistance should be made available to the interns.

Background: In order to improve the prescription quality and promoting rational prescription pattern, there is an obligatory need to investigate the factors that affect doctors' prescription patterns. The study was conducted to observe the antibiotics prescribing pattern at outpatient department of a tertiary medical college hospital. Methods: This was a descriptive cross sectional study in a tertiary medical college hospital during the period of January 2018 to June 2018 which was conducted on 300 prescriptions collected from different outpatient department. Results: Average number of drugs prescribed per encounter was 3.70 (Optimal value 1.6–1.8). Antibiotics (Oral, injectable and topical) were prescribed 46% (Optimal value 20.0–26.8%) and antibiotic as only injected form 19.71% (Optimal value 13.4–24.1% of total injectable drug). Drugs prescribed from the Essential Drugs List( EDL) equated to 52.90% (Optimal value 100%). The antibiotics given in most of the patients ( 91%) were without doing culture sensitivity test before prescribing. Out of 46% prescriptions with antibiotics, 79.9% had one antibiotic, 19.6% included two antibiotics and 0.7% had three antibiotics. Cefuroxime was the most commonly prescribed antibiotics (22.5%) followed by Azythromycin (11.6%) Cefixime (11.5%) Ciprofloxacin (10.9%) Flucloxacillin (10.9%) and Metronidazole (8.7%). Conclusion: This study revealed that percentage of antibiotic was high and most of the antibiotic was given without culture and sensitivity. Chatt Maa Shi Hosp Med Coll J; Vol.17 (2); Jul 2018; Page 36-39

A prospective, open label, parallel group and randomized study was conducted to see the effect of enalapril and losartan on proteinuria in type 2 diabetic nephropathy patients. 18 patients (proteinuria ≥ 0.5 gm/day and serum creatinine ≤3 mg/dL) were selected and then randomly grouped to receive enalapril (5-40 mg/day, n=10) and losartan (25-200 mg/day, n=8) in increasing dose for 16 weeks. No statistically significant alteration in the urinary total protein, protein creatinine ratio, serum creatinine, estimated glomerular filtration rate, serum potassium and blood pressure was observed in any group. After attaining maximum dose (40 mg and 200 mg respectively), enalapril group showed significant (p<0.04) reduction of protein creatinine ratio in comparison to losartan group. It may be concluded that 40 mg enalapril or 200 mg losartan are not sufficient to reduce proteinuria and blood pressure significantly in type 2 proteinuric diabetics with renal dysfunction although both drugs were well tolerated at high doses.