Would medical students enter an exclusion zone in an infected district with a high mortality rate? An analysis of book reports on 28 (secondary publication)

This study aimed to ascertain whether medical students would enter a closed area where there was a raging epidemic of an infectious disease with a high fatality rate, and includes reasons for the students entering or refusing to enter. Participants included 50 second-year medical students. They were assigned to read a novel entitled 28, written by Youjeong Jeong, and discuss it in groups. Using their book reports, their decisions of whether or not to enter Hwayang, the city from the novel, and the reasons for their decisions were analyzed; we furthermore investigated the factors affecting their decisions. Among the 50 respondents, 18 students (36%) answered that they would enter, and the remaining 32 students (64%) answered that they would not enter the zone. The reasons given for entering were responsibility (44%), sense of ethics (33%), social duty (17%), and sense of guilt (6%). The reasons the students provided for not entering were inefficiency (44%), worry regarding family (28%), needlessness of sacrifice (19%), and safety not ensured (9%). Students who had four or fewer family members were more likely to enter Hwayang than were students who had five or more family members (odds ratio, 1.85). Students who had completed over 100 hours of volunteer work were more likely to enter Hwayang than were students who had volunteered less than 100 hours (odds ratio, 2.04). Owing to their “responsibility” as a doctor, 36% of medical students answered that they would enter an exclusion zone in an infected district with a high fatality rate. However, 64% answered they would not enter because of “inefficiency.” For the medical students it is still a question ‘To enter or not to enter?’