| Abstrak/Abstract |
Background: Career intervention in medical students is an activity meant to increase awareness and early exposure
on various medical careers. Utilization of technology as a support to career intervention model offers a novel approach
that might optimize the exposure and quality of the intervention and can be developed as a safe and non-judgemental
environment for the students to talk about career-related topics.
Aims: This study aimed to determine the use of mobile instant messenger as a supportive tool for medical career intervention.
Learning Media Review: LineTM is a mobile instant messenger platform that is used to communicate and send
messages using the internet. This platform provides voice and video calls, text messages, polls, and other features such as:
stickers, photos, videos, voice messages, and location. These features can be accessed free of charge by users. This article uses
discussion and participatory observation methods for three weeks. Thirty six (n=36) first-year medical students that were
joining a career introduction course were placed into on online group, a LineTM group, led by two facilitators to guide
their daily discussion. The responses are voluntary and they were encouraged to express themselves freely without any topic
restriction whatsoever throughout the sessions. Online transcripts were then coded according to recurring topics and themes
that came up during their discussions. Eight themes were identified from the discussion and categorised into three: 3 major
categories, 2 intermediate and 3 minor. Major themes identified were role model, non-academic career information, and
clinical clerkship. This study show maximum engagement of 26 participants on first day with maximum discussion length
in one topic of three hours during career-related topics.
Conclusion: Mobile instant messaging is considered useful in supporting a medical career intervention, especially in
providing career information and carrying a momentum for career-related discussion. It is further stated that the role of
online facilitator as a peer mentor is major in providing quality discussion, a safe environment, and accurate source of
information to the students. |
