Affiliation:
1. Department of Medical Education and Informatics, Faculty of Medicine, Gazi University, Ankara, Turkey
Abstract
<br><b>Aim:</b> We aimed to reveal awareness of distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) among clinical year students (fourth, fifth, and sixth years in undergraduate medical training) in a medical school.</br> <br><b>Methods:</b> This was a descriptive study. The participants were clinical year medical students in a medical school. We developed an electronic survey form on blockchain, Holochain, and other DLTs. Self-perceived knowledge levels on DLTs and Web3 were solicited, as well as DLT-based cryptocurrency-related questions to understand their practical involvement. This approach was taken because, while DLTs are used in healthcare and education, their most common application is in cryptocurrencies. We reported descriptive statistics.</br> <br><b>Results:</b> Total number of participants was 546. Of the students, 74.7% have never heard of blockchain, and 86.3% have never heard of Holochain. DLTs such as DAG (Directed Acyclic Graph), Hashgraph, and Tempo have never been heard of by over 90% of the students. 75.3% stated they are worried about the security and privacy of their data on the internet. 20.3% of the students stated that they have purchased a cryptocurrency at least once, 7.9% used a cryptocurrency wallet where they hold its private key, and 6.8% used a decentralized exchange. If there were an elective course on DLTs in the faculty, 54.8% of the students would be willing to take this course.</br> <br><b>Conclusions:</b> DLT and Web3 awareness among medical students is low. However, there is an interest in taking an elective course on these technologies. In order to create awareness, medical schools could leverage this interest to learn more about Web3 solutions.</br>