Medical Students’ Views on Medical Ethics Education-A Mixed Method Study

Background: Medical Ethics (ME) is considered an integral component of medical education around the world. However, limited training is being offered to medical students in Pakistan. Objectives: This study was designed to evaluate medical students' perspectives regarding medical ethics and to explore their experiences about medical ethics as a subject at a private medical college in Lahore, where Medical Ethics was formally introduced as part of the undergraduate curriculum in 2017. Methods: This mixed-method study included medical students from all five years of medical college. Quantitative component included a survey questionnaire, and the sample size was 410.  Convenient sampling technique was used. Qualitative component included focus group discussions. The students who have attended medical ethics lectures were included in the study. Results: The response rate was 82.72%. There were more females in gender distribution; 76.1% were female and 23.9% were male. Most respondents (74.9%) found medical ethics classes interesting and 72% thought that lecture sessions were important in medical ethics. Conclusions: Medical students find medical ethics as an important component of medical education. Although it is hard to correlate ethics education with their clinical experience as medical students, they believe that medical ethics education can be useful. Social and cultural issues inform clinical decision-making in Pakistan and hence these discussions should be incorporated into medical education. Further studies must be conducted on the actions that need to be taken to help students internalize the ethical issues.

The Best Managerial Practices Bmps Framework for Upgrading Ranking of the Business Institutions in Sindh

Developed countries can become advanced through their quality education system. The quality is important in all aspects of life but the quality in the education sector having the top priority. Several countries constitute their quality standards advancing in line with other education standards to control the educational practices in HEIs. Unfortunately, the quality of the Pakistan’s HEIs is not that well maintained as other competed advanced countries. The one way to improve the quality of HEIs in Pakistan is set a target to upgrade their national and international ranking status. Ranking helps institutions to build their position and image worldwide and enable them to compete internationally. In Pakistan the ranking of HEIs is measured by HEC. However, the designed ranking parameter by HEC are adopted and modified from two international rankings namely: QS and THE ranking system. It is a major research gap in the literature that if HEC adoption the parameters and criteria from international ranking system than why Pakistani universities does not meet the international standards. This research aims to fill this gap through identification of the best practices that enables HEIs to become internationalize and further few more parameters in the HEC ranking proforma that possess international standards. This research is focused on two goals: the first goal is to identify those criteria and parameter that are desired in international standards. Second goal is to explore those practices that are considered as best practices in the national and international ranking system and to explore their adaptability and existence in the business institutes in Sindh. In Pakistan this study is based on mix methods however more focused on quantitative methods. For qualitative method, face to face interviews were conducted and practices were explored and clustered around themes. For quantitative method, semi structured research questionnaire was designed for data collection. The key words of this thesis are best practices, national and international ranking and higher education. The data for this research is collected from Quality Enhancement Cell (QEC) of the business institutes in Sindh. In this study, 263 questions in a semi structured questionnaire were got filled from the twelve business institutions. Pre testing (pilot study) for data collection was carried out in three business institute of Sindh namely; IoBM, Karachi IBA, and IBA Sukkur to examine the feasibility and validity of the study. Based on the results of pilot study, the questionnaire was modified to obtain better results. The tools used in this research are: comparison charts, stacked bar charts, descriptive statistics, hierarchical cluster analysis and logistic regression through SPSS. As this research is based on two goals. The results of this study have two research outputs: first proposed best practices model comprises of fifty best practices through which the HEIs can maintain and upgrade their quality standards and to compete internationally through secure positions in international rankings. Second is the proposed ranking proforma for the HEC to improve their quality standards and enables HEIs in Pakistan to compete globally.