Online learning has become the new normal in many medical and health science schools worldwide, courtesy of COVID-19. Satisfaction with online learning is a significant aspect of promoting successful educational processes. This study aimed to identify factors affecting student and faculty satisfaction with online learning during the new normal. Online questionnaires were emailed to students (n = 370) and faculty (n = 81) involved in online learning during the pandemic. The questionnaires included closed-and open-ended questions and were organised into two parts: socio-demographic information and satisfaction with online learning. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the responses to the satisfaction scales. Students' and faculty responses to the open-ended questions were analysed using the thematic analysis method. The response rate was 97.8% for students and 86.4% for faculty. Overall satisfaction among students was 41.3% compared to 74.3% for faculty. The highest areas of satisfaction for students were communication and flexibility, whereas 92.9% of faculty were satisfied with students' enthusiasm for online learning. Technical problems led to reduced student satisfaction, while faculty were hampered by the higher workload and the required time to prepare the teaching and assessment materials. Study-load and workload, enhancing engagement, and technical issues (SWEET) were the themes that emerged from the thematic analysis as affecting student and faculty satisfaction. Adopting a combination synchronous and asynchronous approach, incorporating different applications to engage students, and timely feedback are imperative to increasing student satisfaction, while institutional support and organisational policy could enhance faculty satisfaction.

We report here that the rat heart is a site of oxytocin (OT) synthesis and release. Oxytocin was detected in all four chambers of the heart. The highest OT concentration was in the right atrium (2128 ؎ 114 pg͞mg protein), which was 19-fold higher than in rat uterus but 3.3-fold lower than in the hypothalamus. OT concentrations were significantly greater in the right and left atria than in the corresponding ventricles. Furthermore, OT was released into the eff luent of isolated, perfused rat heart (34.5 ؎ 4.7 pg͞min) and into the medium of cultured atrial myocytes. Reverse-phase HPLC purification of the heart extracts and heart perfusates revealed a main peak identical with the retention time of synthetic OT. Southern blots of reverse transcription-PCR products from rat heart revealed gene expression of specific OT mRNA. OT immunostaining likewise was found in atrial myocytes and fibroblasts, and the intensity of positive stains from OT receptors paralleled the atrial natriuretic peptide stores. Our findings suggest that heart OT is structurally identical, and therefore derived from, the same gene as the OT that is primarily found in the hypothalamus. Thus, the heart synthesizes and processes a biologically active form of OT. The presence of OT and OT receptor in all of the heart's chambers suggests an autocrine and͞or paracrine role for the peptide. Our finding of abundant OT receptor in atrial myocytes supports our hypothesis that OT, directly and͞or via atrial natriuretic peptide release, can regulate the force of cardiac contraction.Vasopressin and oxytocin (OT) are synthesized predominantly in the magnocellular neurons of the supraoptic nucleus and paraventricular nucleus as well as in the parvocellular neurons within the paraventricular nucleus as parts of larger precursor molecules (1). The precursors are modified posttranslationally and are transported to the posterior pituitary, where the final bioactive peptide products are stored until they are released into the blood stream. Despite being the first peptide hormone to be characterized and synthesized, the effects of oxytocin long were considered to be restricted to stimulation of uterine contractions during labor and milk ejection during lactation. However, OT is found in equivalent concentrations in the neurohypophysis and plasma of both sexes, which suggests that it also may have other physiological roles (2). Moreover, in the central nervous system, OT-containing axons terminate in several brain stem nuclei known to be involved in cardiovascular control, suggesting a potential role for OT in central cardiovascular regulation (3, 4). Indeed, decreased blood pressure may be observed in response to oxytocin given intracerebroventricularly (5), and the inhibition of brain OT synthesis by an antisense oligonucleotide increased blood pressure in rats (6). In primates or humans, the administration of oxytocin often is associated with a decrease in blood pressure (7,8). Peripherally injected OT decreases mean arterial pressure in rats by unknown mec...