Medical students' perception of online assessment at a private medical college

Introduction: During COVID-19 lockdown, Shalamar Medical College opted for an unproctored online formative assessment. Medical institutes have conducted online assessments before COVID-19 and literature presents contrasting views on its acceptability by teachers and students alike. Objective:  This study aims to determine medical students’ perception of the unproctored online assessments. Methods:  A survey questionnaire was disseminated through Google forms to all MBBS students of SMDC on WhatsApp. Consent to take part in the survey was added to the questionnaire and students consenting to be a part of the survey were requested to fill in the questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of closed ended as well as open-ended questions. The data was analyzed by IBM SPSS 20. Results:  Network issues are believed to be a major issue in taking online tests (83%) and 45% of the students feel it is more difficult to take an online test. Fifty-eight percent of the students feel it is easy to cheat on online tests. A considerable number of students (P = 0.00) believe that MCQS are more reliable than SEQs. Conclusion:  The results of this study showed that students do not consider online tests as reliable and effective as classroom tests because of network issues, and unconducive environment at home, limited time, and academic dishonesty. However, if they are unavoidable, students would be more receptive to MCQs than SEQs. KEYWORDS: Reliability, cheating, effectiveness, online assessment  

Genetic Diversity of Metallo-Β-Lactamases in Pseudomonas and Acinetobacter

Antibiotic resistant pathogens cannot be restricted to geographic boundaries, therefore, antibiotic resistance (ABR) is not a problem of a particular area, region or country but it is a global threat and anyone can be suffered with infections without treatment options. ABR has been recognized as complex global public health task which requires adoption of multiple approaches to control and overcome this challenge, especially for Acinetobacter sp. and Pseudomonas sp. These two organisms remained unattended even in AMR global report on surveillance by WHO. Lately, isolation of Acinetobacter and Pseudomonas with higher frequencies from hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) and emergence of highly resistant strains including XDR and even PDR evoked the interests of clinicians towards these pathogens. Consequently, in 2017, WHO also recognized these bugs as high priority threats to human health. Keeping in view the severity of the problems caused by drug resistant strains of Acinetobacter and Pseudomonas, present study targeted them by isolating from patients admitted in ICUs along with few other strains. The isolates were identified by traditional as well, highly sensitive method, matrix assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS). So far, identification of Pseudomonas and Acinetobacter isolates by MALDI-TOF-MS has not been reported from Pakistan. This method enabled us to identify few rare species of Pseudomonas including P. balearica, P. otitidis, and P. fulva. These species are mostly reported from marine environment, food samples and ear infections. Yet the pathogenic role of these strains was not explored in this study as routine testing across the country does not identify them.