Brief Report on the Regular Scientific Meetings (RSMs) Survey

To understand the views from our staffs, both academic and non-academic, regarding the needs of organising RSMs for the School of Medicine (SOM) at its present stage of development and to come up with an appropriate suggestion on RSMs for the School.

“What are the current views of SOM staff, both academic and non-academic, on the organising of RSMs for the School?”

Self-completed questionnaire with face-to-face or telephone interview was performed. Only descriptive analysis was done. The qualitative data was not included but reflected in the suggestion.

31 colleagues were approached (excluding the investigator) and 27 responded (response rate = 87%). The figure includes colleagues who responded to the questionnaire only, those who responded in other ways were not considered as responders. Among the 27 responders, 3 were professors, 6 associate professors, 4 lecturers, 4 post-graduate students and the remaining 10 were non-academic staff comprising of 8 professional supporting staffs, e.g. nurse, pharmacist assistant, laboratory technicians and two administrative staffs.
Eighty-nine percent (24/27) were either agreed or agreed strongly the need to begin RSMs, while 96% (26/27) feel the need to begin educational scientific meetings (ESMs); 70% (19/27) felt the same for research-oriented scientific meetings (ROSMs).
Seventy percent (19/27) either would consider or were willing to be the speakers for the ESMs in their areas of specialty/interest. If only the academic staff was considered, 92% (12/13) of them either would consider or were willing. For ROSMs the corresponding figures were 67% (18/27) and 92% (12/13).
Sixty-seven percent (18/27) preferred to see ESM to be held once in a month, while only 7% (2/27) wished to have it once a week. For ROSM it was preferred to be held once in two months (37%, 10/27), followed by once a month (26%, 7/27) and once in three months (15%, 4/27).
One third of the respondents (9/27) have chosen Wednesday for the meeting, followed by Friday (26%, 7/27) and Monday (11%, 3/27). Afternoon was a more popular choice than morning (41% vs 30%), while some preferred lunch hour (26%).