Medical students still in dark about AIDS

Medical students still in dark about AIDS

JAKARTA (JP): Most Indonesian medical school students learn
about Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) through the mass
media rather than from scientific journals and lectures, a survey
team has discovered.

The survey, conducted by a team from the Atmajaya Catholic
University Research Center last year, found that the students
scored well in their knowledge of the definition and epidemiology
of AIDS and the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), but scored
poorly on their understanding of the demographic facts of
HIV/AIDS infections and its clinical symptoms.

"Fifty-four percent of medical students learn about HIV and
AIDS from the mass media, 11 percent from seminars, 4.2 percent
from scientific journals and only 4.5 percent from their
professors," said Irwanto, who heads the research center that
conducted the survey.

The results were presented on Thursday at a seminar sponsored
by Private Agencies Collaborating Together, Project Concern
International and the university. The seminar was attended by
academics, such as Kartono Mohamad, Firman Lubis and Wahjuning
Ramelan, medical practitioners, students and people involved in
AIDS-prevention activities.

The survey targeted 356 randomly chosen medical students in
their sixth to eighth semester at seven private and state
universities in Jakarta.

The survey discovered that many students felt they lacked
knowledge about the transmission, prevention and clinical tasks
needed to face AIDS and HIV.

"Many of the students consider people with HIV to have high-
risk sexual behavior, but they are also aware that being doctors
they should not think this way," Irwanto said.

Medical students blame their lack of knowledge about AIDS/HIV
on the stressful curriculum which gives them little time to
broaden their perspectives.

The survey recommended medical students seek counseling to
better cope with their patients and emphasized the need to handle
the transmission of AIDS/HIV through a multidisciplinary
approach. This was stressed because AIDS is an opportunistic
infection which showed no specific signs in its early stages.

Kartono, a member of the Indonesian Family Planning Society
and a former chairman of the Indonesian Doctors Association, said
he was "not surprised" by the findings.

He pointed out that even among Indonesian doctors, the
perception of AIDS/HIV varied greatly. "I know of doctors who
refuse to include condoms as a method to prevent the spread of
AIDS/HIV," he said.

Firman, a professor at the University of Indonesia's school of
medicine who is involved in various non-governmental
organizations on AIDS, pointed out that the medical science
curriculum needs revision because most of it is simply
memorization and was irrelevant to real tasks in community.

Doctors, he said, should see their patients through more
"human" eyes.

Wahjuning, a member of the Consortium for Health Sciences
which provides input to the ministry of education and culture
regarding the curriculum for medical sciences, said his office is
presently revising the 1983 curriculum used by medical schools.

The new curriculum, he said, would contain the same 161
credits per semester, but will allow individual schools to add up
to 40 more credits in subjects they considered appropriate.

"It could be used to update students knowledge about AIDS/HIV,
community health, or microbiology," Wahjuning said.(pwn)