Background Reflective practice (RP) plays a crucial role in encouraging learners to think critically and consciously about their performances. Providing constructive feedback can further enhance RP. But non-Western learners might face different learning barriers compared to learners in the West, where RP originated. Methods In this retrospective study, we assessed RP and feedback performances on Thai medical students’ patient history-taking skills. We applied RP and peer feedback, along with feedback from the instructors, during the history-taking sessions of the ten-week introduction course for fourth-year medical students. Twelve history-taking sessions were used for the analysis. Two instructors assessed students’ reflective performance and categorised them into one of the six stages of Gibbs’ reflective cycle; their feedback performances were analysed using Pendleton’s model. We investigated the correlations between students’ overall grade point average (GPAX) and patient history-taking scores on the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE). Students’ opinions of the RP teaching method were also collected. Results All ( n = 48) students participated in our study. The students’ mean age was 21.2 ± 0.5 years. The majority of the students were female (64.6%). The data indicated that 33 and 4% of the participants were categorised into the evaluation stage and action plan stage of Gibbs’ reflective cycle, respectively. In addition, 22 and 15% of the participants were able to state what their peers did well and suggest how peers could improve their skills, respectively. All students passed the minimum passing level of four history-taking OSCE stations. Participants agreed that RP was a useful tool (mean 9.0, SD 0.1), which enhanced their thought processes (mean 8.4, SD 0.2) and future performances (mean 8.2, SD 0.2). However, there was no correlation between the students’ highest Gibbs’ reflection levels and their history-taking OSCE scores. Conclusions RP, together with feedback, proved to be a useful technique to help fourth-year Thai medical students improve their reflection skills, enhance their medical knowledge, and improve patient history-taking skills. Further study with longer monitoring is required to further explore negative and positive influential factors affecting students’ achievement of better reflection performances. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12909-019-1585-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Major identifiable causes of leukocytoclastic vasculitis include certain infections and medications. Amongst antithyroid drugs, methimazole (MMI) is rarely implicated as a culprit drug. We report the first case, in Thailand, of MMI-induced leukocytoclastic vasculitis in a 41-year-old Thai female who had received MMI for relapsed Graves’ disease. MMI was discontinued and cholestyramine at a dose of 4 g four times daily was given instead. Her rashes on both legs resolved dramatically at 1-week follow-up. However, thyroid function test revealed unimproved thyrotoxicosis. She subsequently underwent radioiodine ablation as a definitive treatment. There were neither recurrent skin lesions nor other systemic involvements during the 3-month follow-up period. Notably, the most crucial step in the management of drug-induced leukocytoclastic vasculitis is the discontinuation of the offending drug in order to avoid further progression of the disease. The administration of immunosuppressive agents may not be necessary in patients with mild severity and non-vital organ involvement.

We, hereby, report two cases of serum sickness in adult male identical twins who had received equine rabies immunoglobulin as a postexposure rabies treatment after cat scratches. The younger brother developed low-grade fever, polyarthritis, and multiple erythematous maculopapular eruptions, whereas low-grade fever and urticaria-like eruptions were detected in the elder brother. Both patients received a 7-day course of low-dose prednisolone and achieved good responses without recurrent attacks.