The approach of medical students towards studies of the humanities and social sciences

Objective. To analyze the attitudes of the medical students from Kaunas University of Medicine, Krakow Jagiellonian University, and St. Petersburg State University towards the studies of the humanities and social sciences.
Materials and methods. The survey was carried out in three universities (Kaunas University of Medicine, Krakow Jagiellonian University, and St. Petersburg State University) during 2004– 2005. The questionnaire for the investigation was developed based on R. D. Stenberg’s works on the ways of knowledge-, practice-, and personality-oriented thinking.
Results. After the analysis of students’ attitudes towards the importance of the disciplines of ethics, philosophy, sociology, and psychology at the universities of Kaunas, Krakow, and St. Petersburg, important differences have been found among them. Students gave the highest priority to ethics in their profession. Answering the question, “Are philosophical studies important in medical studies,” statistically significant differences appeared among Krakow, Kaunas, and St. Petersburg universities. Students of all the universities agreed that sociology and psychology studies were important for their future profession.
Conclusions. Having estimated the opinions of medical students’ attitudes towards the importance of the humanities and social sciences, we may state that the students of Krakow and St. Petersburg universities more often agreed that ethics and philosophy were important for their studies. The importance of psychology science was emphasized by the students of all universities, and the students of Kaunas University of Medicine and St. Petersburg State University agreed more often that the discipline of sociology was important for the future studies.