Mohammad Anwar Khan

Background. A culture of quality is believed to drive institutes toward excellence through feedback. Multiple surveys at educational institute help to get a deeper insight into institutional performance and curricular execution. Since problem-based learning (PBL) is an important component of the hybrid curriculum, thus stakeholders’ opinion on PBL satisfaction is worth discussing. This study intended to determine the trends in students’ satisfaction with PBL over the years and to report on the importance of curricular changes that can be incorporated based on students’ needs. Methods. This is a descriptive cross-sectional study that was conducted at the College of Medicine (COM), King Saud Bin Abdul Aziz University for Health Sciences (KSAU-HS), Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. All male and female medical students, using consecutive sampling technique, were included in the study. End-of-course evaluation reports for the academic years ranging from 2013 to 2019 on PBL satisfaction, with a response rate of ≥60%, were included in this study. Results. Overall, students at the COM, Jeddah were satisfied with PBL. A declining but satisfactory trend followed by a sharp rise in satisfaction was observed in this study. Pearson correlation reported a positive relationship between PBL problems, tutors, and PBL sessions (r = 0.82, p < 0.001 ). Conclusions. Transition from three sessions to two sessions per PBL case can be considered as an effective and efficient way of curricular execution. We found that the tutor, the case, and session dynamics were positively correlated after the incorporation of the feedback. Thus, highlighting the facts that inculcating a culture of responding to feedback can lead to innovations in medical teaching and can help to improve the curricular execution and students’ satisfaction.

Background. Graves’ disease (GD) and Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (HT) are the most common types of autoimmune thyroid diseases (AITD), and both are characterized by the infiltration of lymphocytes into the thyroid gland. Moreover, autoimmune diseases like HT have a higher risk of developing lymphoma. This study is aimed at assessing the prevalence and association of lymphoma in patients with AITD. Methods. This cross-sectional study was conducted in King Abdulaziz Medical City, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Data were gathered from the medical records of patients aged 18 years or older who developed AITD. A total number of 140 medical records were collected, and 72 patients were included after applying in exclusion criteria. Data on the subtype, clinical-stage, treatment modality, patient status, remission, and relapse were collected for patients who developed lymphoma. Results. Among 72 patients who developed AITD, HT was diagnosed in 58 (80.6%) patients and GD in 14 (19.4%). Five (7%) patients were diagnosed with lymphoma all of whom had a history of HT. The subtypes of lymphoma were diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL 3; 4.2%), follicular lymphoma 1 (1.4%), and Hodgkin’s lymphoma 1 (1.4%). Conclusion. The prevalence of PTL in patients with AITD, specifically HT, was 7%. Most patients developed NHL, with DLBCL being the most common subtype. The onset of lymphoma in this study was lower than reported in the literature. All patients with PTL had HT in their backgrounds. Further national studies are warranted to explore the relationship between the two diseases to provide more insight into the comprehension of this association.