title: Language barriers in medical education and attitudes towards Arabization of medicine: student and staff perspectives.
abstract: Students and staff perspectives on language barriers in medical education in Egypt and their attitude towards Arabization of the medical curriculum were explored in a questionnaire survey of 400 medical students and 150 staff members. Many students (56.3%) did not consider learning medicine in English an obstacle, and 44.5% of staff considered it an obstacle only in the 1st year of medical school. Many other barriers to learning other than language were mentioned. However, 44.8% of students translated English terms to Arabic to facilitate studying and 70.6% of students in their clinical study years would prefer to learn patient history-taking in Arabic. While Arabization in general was strongly declined, teaching in Arabic language was suggested as appropriate in some specialties.
authors.affiliation: Department of Community, Environmental and Occupational Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt.
authors.forename: S M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Sabbour
authors.affiliation: Department of Community, Environmental and Occupational Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt.
authors.forename: S A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Dewedar
authors.affiliation: Department of Community, Environmental and Occupational Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt.
authors.forename: S K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Kandil