Sexual dysfunction: a study on learning experience of Australian medical students

The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 2013

Medical education in sexual health in the United States and Canada is lacking. Medical students and practicing physicians report being underprepared to adequately address their patients' sexual health needs. Recent studies have shown little instruction on sexual health in medical schools and little consensus around the type of material medical students should learn. To address and manage sexual health issues, medical students need improved education and training. Aim. This meeting report aims to present findings from a summit on the current state of medical school education in sexual health and provides recommended strategies to better train physicians to address sexual health. Methods. To catalyze improvements in sexual health education in medical schools, the summit brought together key U.S. and Canadian medical school educators, sexual health educators, and other experts. Attendees reviewed and discussed relevant data and potential recommendations in plenary sessions and then developed key recommendations in smaller breakout groups. Results. Findings presented at the summit demonstrate that the United States and Canada have high rates of poor sexual health outcomes and that sexual health education in medical schools is variable and in some settings diminished. To address these issues, government, professional, and student organizations are working on efforts to promote sexual health. Several universities already have sexual health curricula in place. Evaluation mechanisms will be essential for developing and refining sexual health education. Conclusions. To be effective, sexual health curricula need to be integrated longitudinally throughout medical training. Identifying faculty champions and supporting student efforts are strategies to increase sexual health education. Sexual health requires a multidisciplinary approach, and cross-sector interaction between various public and private entities can help facilitate change. Areas important to address include: core content and placement in the curriculum; interprofessional education and training for integrated care; evaluation mechanisms; faculty development and cooperative strategies. Initial recommendations were drafted for each. Coleman E, Elders J, Satcher D, Shindel A, Parish S, Kenagy G, Bayer CR, Knudson G, Kingsberg S, Clayton A, Lunn MR, Goldsmith E, Tsai P, and Light A. Summit on medical school education in sexual health: Report of an expert consultation. J Sex Med 2013;10:924-938. This meeting report was produced as an effort to convey the discussion and recommendations of the experts attending the meeting. Every reasonable effort was made to present this meeting report in an objective and fair way. 924 J Sex Med 2013;10:924-938

American Journal of Sexuality Education, 2014

Although studies have shown that patients want to receive sexual health services from their physicians, doctors often lack the knowledge and skills to discuss sexual health with their patients. There is little consistency among medical schools and residency programs in the United States regarding comprehensiveness of education on sexual health. Sexuality education in U.S. medical schools and residency programs is reviewed, highlighting schools that go beyond the national requirements for sexuality education. Increasing the amount of sexuality instruction provided for medical education and training, standardizing sexuality education requirements in medical school and residency programs, incorporating different learning models, establishing means of consistently assessing and evaluating sexuality knowledge and skills, and creating national certification standards for the practice of sexual medicine are recommended.

The virtual mentor : VM, 2014

There is a crisis in medical school education about sexual health in the United States [1]. Recent studies indicate that efforts to educate medical students about sexual health may have decreased in the last decade [2]. There is also little consensus about the content and skills that should be covered in sexual health curricula [3, 4]. Recently, interest in more training in LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) health has increased, but it is rarely sufficient and rarely connected to a broader integrated curriculum in sexual health [5, 6]. For their part, medical students express dissatisfaction about their sexual health education [7]. Proposals for enhancing sexual health education seem to gain little traction [1, 8, 9].

Open Research Europe

Sexual health has been recognized as an essential component of the overall health and wellbeing. The current article aims, first, to review the current state of sexual health education in undergraduate medical curricula, identifying gaps, needs and challenges. The main part of this paper describes the development and content of an undergraduate sexual medicine curriculum based on a clear concept of the competencies students should learn regarding knowledge, skills and attitudes. The content is based on a biopsychosocial understanding of human sexuality elaborated by international experts from different European countries integrating basic knowledge in biology, psychology, sociocultural and political sciences, preventive medicine, and the various therapeutic approaches to help women, men and couples with sexual health problems on a primary care level. In order to enable students to learn the basic skills of sexual history taking and sexual basic counselling two educational videos we...

2014

American Journal of Sexuality Education, 2016

Despite patient demand for sexual health discussions with their physicians, sexuality instruction in residency is often lacking. This exploratory quantitative study assessed the amount and usefulness of sexuality instruction received by a sample of medical residents, as well as the residents' self-perceived readiness regarding addressing sexuality issues. Data were obtained through a selfadministered survey with 130 resident respondents. The majority reported receiving little/no formal sexuality instruction. Many indicated that additional sexuality instruction would be useful in their practice. Although the majority reported comfort discussing sexuality, they reported rarely/never initiating these discussions. Recommendations for changes in graduate medical education programming are provided.

2021

Introduction: Medical students self-report insufficient training in topics of gender and sexuality in medicine, which may ultimately lead to negative health outcomes in patients for whom they will provide care. This study aims to identify whether a student-initiated lecture series on topics related to gender and sexual health leads to greater student comfort with discussing topics related to diverse sexual content. Methods: Medical students matriculated during two consecutive academic years were invited to participate in the lecture series. Investigators administered anonymous pre- and post-series surveys (n=152 and 105 respondents, respectively) using google forms. Respondents rated their comfort levels discussing relevant topics and provided narrative feedback concerning strengths and areas for improvement of the lecture series. Overlaps between the 95% confidence intervals around pre- and post-series percentage of students comfortable/very comfortable discussing each topic were e...

Background: Sexual health is a critical component of overall wellness; however, only half of U.S. medical schools currently require formal instruction in sexuality. Aim: This study sought to quantify the sexual health knowledge of undergraduate medical students using a novel survey tool evaluating 6 domains: sexual function and dysfunction; fertility and reproduction; sexuality across the lifespan; sexual minority health; society, culture, and behavior; as well as safety and prevention. Methods: A novel 32-question survey tool was developed by subject matter experts from the University of Minnesota Program in Human Sexuality. Survey questions were derived from the 2012 and 2014 Summits on Medical School Education in Sexual Health as well as the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States Guidelines for Kindergarten through 12th Grade. The total knowledge score was calculated out of 30 points (excluding 2 terminology questions that were subjective). Medical students at 178 allopathic and osteopathic medical schools in the United States were invited to take the online survey. Outcomes: Students performed below a passing rate (70%) in 4 of the 6 knowledge categories and below a passing rate overall in the knowledge assessment. Results: Survey respondents (n ¼ 1,014) scored an average of 66% correct (approximately 20/30). Overall, students scored lowest on questions regarding safety and prevention (x À ¼ 49%) and highest on questions

The Psychiatrist, 2011

Aims and methodTo evaluate the effectiveness of two psychodynamic psychotherapy teaching methods, a student psychotherapy scheme (SPS) and participation in a Balint group, in teaching first-year clinical medical students about doctor–patient communication and the doctor–patient relationship. The 28 students, who were randomly allocated to three groups (SPS group, Balint group starting at baseline and Balint group starting at 3 months and acting as partial controls), were rated on a questionnaire testing their knowledge of emotional and psychodynamic aspects of the doctor–patient relationship administered at baseline, at 3 months and at 1 year.ResultsAt 3 months, students in the SPS and Balint groups scored higher than the partial control group, the difference approaching significance at the 5% level. At 1 year, participation in either teaching method led to significantly higher scores compared with baseline.Clinical implicationsPsychodynamic psychotherapy teaching methods are effect...

˜The œjournal of sexual medicine, 2024

Sexual medicine, 2018

Sexual health problems are common. Therefore, training in sexual health is relevant for the clinical practice of trainees and early-career specialists in several specialties who deal with patients with sexual health problems. However, little is known about how sexual health training is provided across countries and specialties. To assess (i) sexual health training during postgraduate training programs in psychiatry, obstetrics and gynecology, urology, and endocrinology across Europe; (ii) the confidence of trainees and early-career specialists in dealing with patients with sexual health problems; and (iii) their need for further training in sexual health during postgraduate training programs. The study was based on a collaboration among European societies of trainees in these 4 specialties. An online survey was developed and conducted from January 2015 through June 2016. Self-reported questionnaire. We collected 366 completed surveys from 40 countries. Sexual health training was con...

Medicine, 2016

This study explores the experiences of Saudi undergraduate medical students about intimate-area examination (IAE) and sexual history taking (SHT) skills and assesses the barriers and their impacts on students' learning. This survey-based study was performed at 2 Saudi university medical colleges and revealed that most of the students never performed IAE, that is, female breast, male genital, female genital, female pelvic, male rectal, and female rectal. We found that 42.3% students had never taken any sexual history during their course. Both, male and female students reported barriers of patient refusal, mismatched sex, cultural background, ethical factors, lack of supervision, lack of training, and lack of skills. Among the currently used pedagogical techniques, majority of the students were satisfied with real patient-based learning, followed by video and manikin-based learning. The study indicates that Saudi students do not have sufficient experience of IAE and SHT because of...

Despite patient demand for sexual health discussions with their physicians, sexuality instruction in residency is often lacking. This exploratory quantitative study assessed the amount and useful- ness of sexuality instruction received by a sample of medical resi- dents, as well as the residents’ self-perceived readiness regarding addressing sexuality issues. Data were obtained through a self- administered survey with 130 resident respondents. The major- ity reported receiving little/no formal sexuality instruction. Many indicated that additional sexuality instruction would be useful in their practice. Although the majority reported comfort discussing sexuality, they reported rarely/never initiating these discussions. Recommendations for changes in graduate medical education programming are provided.

2015

Despite well-documented sexual health disparities, medical school training in human sexuality remains limited. Our intents with this paper are to deconstruct the successes and challenges in including sexuality education in medical education and to pose critical questions for moving medical education and sexuality education forward. We offer future systematic level strategies for consideration, including the role of health policy in addressing this problem in training. It is imperative that all physicians are well equipped to address sexual health with patients in order to help eliminate sexual health disparities. Finding solutions to bridge the patient realities with the medical training realities is one step in creating sexually healthy societies.

Internal Medicine and Medical Investigation Journal

Background: The sexual medicine education in medical faculties has been a challenging issue worldwide in recent decades. Most of medical students are dissatisfied for their sexual health education which indicates an emergent need for curriculum revision. The nobility of the study was to reveal medical students' competency gaps on sexual medicine.Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted at a large, public medical school, topped the national ranking for its excellence in education. The target population was medical interns in their 6th and 7th year of their course. With a census sampling approach, all eligible students were included. To develop the questionnaire, the framework of ESSM (European Society for Sexual Medicine) syllabus of sexual medicine 2012 was employed after being examined by an expert panel to meet the criteria of content coverage. Recruiting 10 participants, a pilot was conducted to assess the criterions of validity and reliability. Finally a 35 item que...