[01] Gurpreet Kaur Gian Singh, Faculty of Medicine, Melaka Manipal Medical College, Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Melaka, Malaysia. [02] Suwathiga Thamilchelvan, Faculty of Medicine, Melaka Manipal Medical College, Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Melaka, Malaysia. [03] Alya Mohamed Nyan, Faculty of Medicine, Melaka Manipal Medical College, Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Melaka, Malaysia. [04] Rohan Prem Nair, Faculty of Medicine, Melaka Manipal Medical College, Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Melaka, Malaysia.

Medical schools teaching mainly places an emphasis on clinical training and yet falls short in preparation to address difficult clinical situations, particularly when it comes to concerns of diversity. Our objective was to assess the comfort and preparedness with patients, peers and supervisors among undergraduate medical students in Melaka Manipal Medical College (MMMC) to overcome these varying types of distinctive, diversifying and clinically challenging scenarios. A two parts online survey was administered to clinical undergraduate medical students of Melaka Manipal Medical College in the MBBS program. The survey addressed a variety of different encounters with patients, peers and supervisors, based on seven subject areas such as gender, age, religion, race / ethnicity, sexual orientation, politics, and disability. The participants scored their degree of comfort across a 5-point Likert scale with response choices ranging from 1 to 5 (1= Very uncomfortable to 5= Very comfortable). The data were processed using Microsoft Excel and analysed using Epi info version 7.2.2.6, from 130 students. This study reported the lowest overall comfort score (2.67) followed by low comfort with all three level-specific interactions and the higher comfort with religion-related interactions (3.40). Moreover, multiple male and female response patterns showed evidence of neutral comfort level in politically associated scenarios. All religions felt least comfortable for political subject and highest comfort for disability subject. All ethnicities feel very comfortable at peer level scenarios and somewhat uncomfortable to neutral for political subject scenarios. International students scored higher comfort levels in all the three levels compared to Malaysian students. Our study documented there were no significant differences in MMMC students comfort level across gender, age, ethnicity, religion, nationality and semester. In conclusion, students reported lowest comfort with peer interactions compared to patient and upper level interactions. A low comfort level for all of the subject-specific issues was reported, except for sexual orientation and identity and religion-related issues which they reported to have a neutral comfort level. Medical students may benefit from simulation-based training in order to prepare themselves for navigating diversity-related conflicts when entering the medical workplace.

Cross-sectional, Medical Student, Diversity, Comfort, Preparedness, Professional Development

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