Bullying among medical students in a Saudi medical school

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Bullying and sexual harassment of medical students by their teachers appears to be widespread phenomenon. However, nothing is published about its prevalence in conservative countries such as Saudi Arabia. This survey aims to ascertain the extent of these mistreatments among students in a Saudi medical school. FINDINGS: A cross-sectional questionnaire survey was conducted on a group of 542 clinical years' medical students in a Saudi medical school to explore students' perceptions of their educational environment including exposure to different kinds of bullying. Bullying was defined as "a "persistent behaviour against a medical student that is intimidating, degrading, offensive or malicious and undermines the confidence and self- esteem of the recipient". Results revealed that more than one quarter (28.0 %) of the surveyed students reported exposure to some sort of bullying during their clinical . Ninety percent of the reported insults were verbal, 6 % sexual and 4 % physical. Males were more exposed but difference was not statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS: Bullying among Saudi medical students is an existing problem. A policy against bullying and harassment should be adopted in all of medical colleges to monitor this phenomenon and support students who have been bullied.     

The EU medical device regulation: Implications for artificial intelligence-based medical device software in medical physics

Medical device manufacturers are increasingly applying artificial intelligence (AI) to innovate their products and to improve patient outcomes. Health institutions are also developing their own algorithms, to address specific needs for which no commercial product exists.Although AI-based algorithms offer good prospects for improving patient outcomes, their wide adoption in clinical practice is still limited. The most significant barriers to the trust required for wider implementation are safety and clinical performance assurance .Qualified medical physicist experts (MPEs) play a key role in safety and performance assessment of such tools, before and during integration in clinical practice. As AI methods drive clinical decision-making, their quality should be assured and tested. Occasionally, an MPE may be also involved in the in-house development of such an AI algorithm. It is therefore important for MPEs to be well informed about the current regulatory framework for Medical Devices.The new European Medical Device Regulation (EU MDR), with date of application set for 26 of May 2021, imposes stringent requirements that need to be met before such tools can be applied in clinical practice.The objective of this paper is to give MPEs perspective on how the EU MDR affects the development of AI-based medical device software. We present our perspective regarding how to implement a regulatory roadmap, from early-stage consideration through design and development, regulatory submission, and post-market surveillance. We have further included an explanation of how to set up a compliant quality management system to ensure reliable and consistent product quality, safety, and performance .