BantayHin 101: Mental Health in Medical School

 Hello mga dok ka-abalahin welcome sa BantayHin 101, well ahh BantayHin means a blog that support and promote mental health awareness of each medical students as to be aware of their mental health as this will affect performance of students as well.

Disclaimer, this will help you guide monitor your mental health in both medical school up to PLE, also there will also be a message and guide for professors who may rant the students for low PLE scores since I heard some

INTRODUCTION:

What is health- according to WHO, Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. take note of one of the components MENTAL

MENTAL HEALTH according to WHO, is is a state of mental well-being that enables people to cope with the stresses of life, realize their abilities, learn well and work well, and contribute to their community.

Medical school introduces too much stresses, aside from the volume of work and studies to be done, and increased workload of clerkship, internship, batter/comprehensive exam in some medical schools but lets focus on mental health

according to the studies made by Adulghani et. al., stresses may imapair the behavior of the students but may decrease overtime, according to the studies made by Adam and Neufield, the medical students have different coping strategies, in their research, females are more adept to coping mechanisms, also determinants are their environmental factors (ex. Patient Deaths) 

Coping mechanisms of students (https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-021-02734-4/tables/2)

But according to studies done by Melaku et. al. In the present study, the odds of being anxious were markedly decreased as the educational level increased after the first year. For example, the odds of being anxious were markedly increased with 14.89 times in the second-year students compared to the sixth-year ones. common mechanisms of diseases secondary to mental stresses it can include is DEPRESSION AND ANXIETY

ROLE OF EACH OTHER IN TERMS OF MONITORING MENTAL HEALTH FOR EACH 

STUDENTS 

- as your colleague and friends, you can check each other since monitoring each other and can help you to drag up each other for all of you to pass your subjects , I will create my own scoring system to help you out check your colleagues.

ABALAHIN RATING SCALE OF STRESS FOR MENTAL STUDENTS

Kindly put a check on the rating scale and add the total

During the past 5 weeks	0 No observation	1 Mildly observed	2 Obviously observed
Can you observe that your colleague feels that he/shes having a hard time
What can you observe on the performance on your colleague during the past 1 grading period, does she become sad or agitated
Can you observe that there is diminished socialization skills of your colleague and noticed that he/she is looking stressed
Can you observe any changes in behavior during the past 5 weeks
Does your friend/colleague doesn’t make it obvious but by looking at his/her that she needs help

                                                                                                                         Total:

 Interpretation

• 0-2: Just observe but socialization is need for prevention purposes
• 3-5: Really be with friend, give advices, help him/her whatever that  person needs
• 6-8: Refer to medical professors or Dean or guidance office for proper advice
• 9-10 (or >9): Refer to psychiatry to rule out Depression and Anxiety disorder

**If a student had even mild suicide intent, automatically add 5 to the Total 

MEDICAL PROFESSORS or DEAN or GUIDANCE OFFICE

 give proper advice to medical students, elaborate the importance of checking the mental health of the student/s promote awareness and mental health break as to prevent complications of mental health stresses secondary to medical school such as Depression, Anxiety, and Suicide in the community (medical students).

PSYCHIATRIST

 they will be the last resort as they will give pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatment once the medical student once found that he/she is having depression and anxiety, they can also have a forum regarding the importance of mental health awareness in the community

MESSAGE TO THE PROFESSORS

Dear Professors/Deans

 As you can read above and given of knowledge that we have learned during our medical school days, it is important that mental health should also be checked aside from giving mental health breaks since due to heavy workload, medical students are prone to stress and once not seen may lead to depression and anxiety

 In light of ranting to students in medical schools that has low PLE ratings, it will no be helpful to the students since demoralizing students due to the interpretation and different coping mechanisms of other students as proven by research already, instead, why not become a good mentor to this students, promote active learning and create a good learning environment and help them, teach them, nurture them, and mentor them. Demoralization aside from promiting and precipitating lower PLE ratings, according to Oxford it may also lead to increase depression, anxiety, and worse suicidality among medical students instead of having leave of absences which segways it from our oath as "do no harm". Mentoring may increase chances of winning and PLE ratings.

Hoping for consideration of this matter

Dok Juan Abalahin
General Practice / Volunteer coach

I hope this will help both schools and medical students