Acta Medica Martiniana - Cephas Health Research Initiative Inc. https://cephashri.org Advancing Evidence. Building Healthier Communities Sat, 08 Nov 2025 06:08:59 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.3 https://cephashri.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/cropped-favicon-32x32.png Acta Medica Martiniana - Cephas Health Research Initiative Inc. https://cephashri.org 32 32 One snake or two? Exploring medical symbols among medical students https://cephashri.org/publication/one-snake-or-two-exploring-medical-symbols-among-medical-students/ Fri, 08 Nov 2019 06:04:27 +0000 https://cephashri.org/?post_type=publication&p=1726 Background: Symbols play a very crucial role in the culture of a society, and the medical society is not an exception to this. In the world of Orthodox medicine, the Rod of Asclepius is regarded as the true symbol of medicine. However, there exists to be an issue of interchange of the correct medical symbol with another similar symbol (i.e. the Caduceus). This study aims to explore medical students’ knowledge and opinion on the appropriate symbol of medicine. Methods: This study was a cross-sectional survey of 84 medical students at the Usmanu Danfodiyo University (UDU), North-West Nigeria. Study tool was a paper questionnaire. The collected data was analyzed using the Epi info 7 Software. Results: The mean (±SD) age of the participants was 23.7 (±3.4) years, 72.6% were males, and 73.8% were in their 4th year. Only 59.5% had interest in non-medical literature. Also, only 6.0% had doctors as their parents. The majority (88.1%) of the participants erroneously identified the Caduceus symbol as the most appropriate symbol of medicine. Furthermore, only 45.2% indicated that the Rod of Asclepius and the Caduceus symbols originated from ancient Greece. Virtually all (97.6%) the participants opined that the Caduceus symbol is the most popular symbol of Medicine.

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]]> Background: Symbols play a very crucial role in the culture of a society, and the medical society is not an exception to this. In the world of Orthodox medicine, the Rod of Asclepius is regarded as the true symbol of medicine. However, there exists to be an issue of interchange of the correct medical symbol with another similar symbol (i.e. the Caduceus). This study aims to explore medical students’ knowledge and opinion on the appropriate symbol of medicine. Methods: This study was a cross-sectional survey of 84 medical students at the Usmanu Danfodiyo University (UDU), North-West Nigeria. Study tool was a paper questionnaire. The collected data was analyzed using the Epi info 7 Software. Results: The mean (±SD) age of the participants was 23.7 (±3.4) years, 72.6% were males, and 73.8% were in their 4th year. Only 59.5% had interest in non-medical literature. Also, only 6.0% had doctors as their parents. The majority (88.1%) of the participants erroneously identified the Caduceus symbol as the most appropriate symbol of medicine. Furthermore, only 45.2% indicated that the Rod of Asclepius and the Caduceus symbols originated from ancient Greece. Virtually all (97.6%) the participants opined that the Caduceus symbol is the most popular symbol of Medicine.

The post One snake or two? Exploring medical symbols among medical students first appeared on Cephas Health Research Initiative Inc..

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