Difference in the Characteristics of Imposter Syndrome in Dental Students of Preclinical and Clinical Phase

Background: People suffering from imposter syndrome despite being competent consider themselves less skillful and incapable. Such individuals are also more prone to regret their choice of career with consequent early drop out, experience burnout, more prone to medical errors, absenteeism and low job satisfaction.  The current study aims to determine the difference in the characteristics of imposter syndrome in dental students of preclinical and clinical phase and its gender predisposition. Objectives: 1. To find out the frequency and characteristics of imposter syndrome among dental students. 2. To evaluate the differences in the characteristics of imposter syndrome among dental students of preclinical and clinical year. 3. To determine gender predisposition of imposter syndrome among dental students. Methods: The cross-sectional study was conducted on 138 dental students of CMH Lahore Medical and Dental College. A validated questionnaire (Clance IP Scale) containing 20 items with 5-point Likert scale was used to collect data by convenient sampling technique. The characteristics of IP were determined by adding the scores of all items. Descriptive statistics were done, chi-square applied, p-value <0.05 was considered significant. Results: One hundred and thirty-eight students filled the IP Scale. The frequency of imposter syndrome is found to be 52.1% among Dental Students. Majority (72) of the dental students have frequent to intense imposter feelings. There is non-significant difference in the IP characteristics of male and female students. No significant difference in the characteristics of imposter syndrome is found between dental students of preclinical and clinical year. Conclusions: There frequency of imposter syndrome is high among Dental students. Non-significant difference in the IP characteristics is found between male and female students as well as students of preclinical and clinical year.

Genesis and Dimensions of Religious Militancy: Implications on the Internal Security of Pakistan 2001-2015

Pakistan since more than a decade has been facing the challenge of internal security derived from religiously grounded militancy. More than seventy thousand civilian and military personnel have lost their lives. Religion in Pakistan have always been central within its polity and social fabric. In this context, the influence of religion on the policy matrix gain strength with the changing domestic and external events. The formation of religious elite along with the strategic and political developments in 1980s paved the way for a particular set of religious dogma to proliferate their set of beliefs through rigor and force. A society with weak infrastructure, poorly governed areas, institutional imbalance between military and civilians are generically more prone to extremist and radical manifestations, as happened in case of Pakistan. In addition to, these socio political and economic weakness within the society entrenched with staunch rigid beliefs amalgamated to form an anti-state agenda where militants in the tribal belt in post 2001 years control certain parts of the region to implement their self-crafted code of Sharia. In addition to it, on the external front, US intervention in Afghanistan became a pivotal incident in stimulating certain pockets of society which were already entrenched with the phenomenon of rigid and peculiar philosophy based on the vision of exclusion. This piece of research intended to find out the roots and shoots of religious militancy in Pakistan and how it affected the internal security of Pakistan. The high number of human fatalities, suicide bombings, attacks on governmental and military installations, educational institutes, political leadership, markets, and public transport explicates the deep rooted implications of militancy in Pakistan. Mosque, Imam bargah, church was symbolically targeted by the militants. It was the most tragic decade in the history of Pakistan when the most defense less unit of society, school children were brutally massacred in 2014. The containment and eradication of militancy had been on the top security agenda as Pakistan’s security, stability and sustainability is entrenched with the eradication of the menace of militancy.