Background: The COVID-19 pandemic had significant effects on medical students. Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on preclinical medical students and determine their views about distance education and working on the frontline. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 722 preclinical medical students. Data were collected with an online questionnaire between 20 and 27 December 2020. A data collection form including questions about sociodemographic characteristics, opinions about distance education and frontline working, the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R), and the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) scales was used for data retrieval. Results: The students’ mean age was 20.7±1.6 years, and 393 (54.4%) were female. Of the students, 699 (96.8%) were concerned about their education, 181 (25.1%) had post-traumatic stress disorder, and 171 (23.6%) had insomnia. Post-traumatic stress was higher in women compared to men (χ2 =3.916, p=0.048), in those who had acquaintances with COVID-19 compared to those who had not (χ2 =12.798, p<0.001), those who had a fear of COVID-19 contamination to their relatives compared to those who did not have such a fear (χ2 =34.463, p<0.001), those who followed COVID-19-related news on social media compared to those who did not follow such information (χ2 =8.250, p=0.004), and those who had a high level of anxiety about the interruption of their education compared to those who had less anxiety (χ2 =42.147, p<0.001). PTSD was significantly higher in those who had negative opinions towards distance education (χ2 =17.340, p<0.007), and those with internet connection and quota problems (p<0.001 and p=0.007 respectively). Conclusion: While students are experiencing the psychological effects of the pandemic, they also worry about the interruption of their education. Educators who prepare students for the upcoming pandemics should also be aware of the psychological effects and implement remedial interventions for their mental health

Aim: This study aimed to evaluate the attitudes of medical faculty sophomore students towards communication skills training module consists theory courses and simulated patient interviews. Methods: This study was planned in before-and-after intervention study and was carried out with 257 second-year medical students. The Communication Skills Attitude Scale (CSAS) were used for data collection. The scale was administered to the participants before the training (1), after the training (2), and after the simulated patient interviews (3). Results: The mean age of the students was 20.13±2.13 years, and 133 (51.8%) of them were female. PAS 1 and PAS 3 scores were 55.38±6.58 and 58.05±7.39, respectively, while NAS 1 and 3 scores were 30.25±4.49 and 28.88±4.96, respectively. PAS 3 was considerably higher than PAS 1 and 2 scores (p=0.037), while NAS 3 was significantly lower than NAS 1 and 2 scores (p=0.005). There was no difference between the positive and negative attitudes of females and males before the training. However, after the training, female’s positive scores significantly increased compared to men, and their negative scores decreased. Positive attitude scores of the female students increased after both the theory course and the simulated patient interviews. On the other hand, the negative attitude scores decreased significantly after the simulated patient interviews (p<0.05). Conclusion: Communication skills training improves students’ attitudes. In this improvement, the contribution of simulated patient interviews is more than theory instructions.