MSE Articles

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to determine anxiety-producing situations among medical students starting clinical studies from their own and their teachers’ perspectives. Students’ perceived anxieties were assessed by means of a questionnaire. The same questionnaire was given to the teachers involved in clinical training during the fourth year of medical education. Teachers were asked to complete the questionnaire as they thought the introductory students would have done. According to the students, the top five situations that produce anxiety were: giving a wrong treatment, getting diagnoses wrong, carrying out cardiopulmonary resuscitation, inadvertently hurting patients and becoming infected by patients. The situations that were found to be as anxiety producing by the teachers were mostly related to communicating with patients. It is important to identify and minimize the sources of anxiety before students are exposed. But the teacher first needs to be aware of these sources and the fact that students may respond differently to their clinical activities.

ABSTRACT

Geriatric patient cases are ideal for use by basic science educators who seek to link key principles and concepts with clinical medicine. However, access to geriatric educators and geriatric patients able to highlight the evolution of a particular disease/condition, limits the basic science educator??bf?s ability to easily incorporate clinical cases into their teaching. To address this resource limitation, we developed five core geriatric clinical cases, each portraying a patient who ages over time, for repeated use in multiple courses/clerkships across the four-year medical student curriculum. In this article, we describe the process involved in designing the cases with illustrative examples of their use in selected basic science courses. Guided by John Kotter??bf?s change process, the project team sponsored a series of invitational workshops composed of basic science and clinical educators whose expertise was related to the patient under review. At each workshop, an abstracted patient record was presented (e.g., longitudinal history, physical exam, laboratory data, and diagnostic images), and participants modified the case to better highlight teaching points associated with their respective courses/clerkships. Each updated case was then circulated to all workshop attendees, and other educators across the curriculum, for incorporation into their instruction. The flexibility of each case enables faculty to use the case(s) in varied settings (e.g., lectures, problem based learning groups, labs) matched to the objectives, resulting in students having a longitudinal experience with five geriatric patients and their diseases. The cases continue to be incorporated into the curriculum with students reinforcing the value of their inclusion as they follow the patient??bf?s diabetes and its progression through biochemistry, physiology, surgery and medicine. In summary, Kotter??bf?s change steps effectively guided the project team and can serve as a model for educators seeking to enhance reciprocal integration of basic and clinical sciences.

Scholarship. A word we all use but how is it actually defined? To the basic scientist the meaning is clearly ingrained from our graduate student days that scholarship equals publication. And not just any publication, but specifically within certain journals of our discipline. For decades, survival at the bench has seemingly necessitated becoming narrower and… Read more »

In a previous issue of the Resource Guide (Vol. 12 #1, 2002), two examples illustrated how Websites can be linked to and incorporated into a lecture in real time. The incorporation of digitized Web based images into Microsoft® PowerPoint® presentations is another strategy for using the Internet for instructional purposes. The Internet is a rich… Read more »

My father always told me your body is simply a vehicleA vessel for transitionSuperstitions predict positions of power for those who are selflessTraditions pass visions of peaceful exodusYet next to us corpses are scorned as moroseDon’t you rather them diagnosed as virtuous?I know I am envious of their courageOf their fearlessness and powerful pledgeFor they… Read more »

Abstract
An innovative and educationally sound method was introduced at the University of Louisville, School of Medicine for the education of the second year medical students. Instruction is by physicians, who present a clinical case in the Socratic manner. A group of students, through questioning, derive important facts about the case and ultimately agree on a differential diagnosis for the patient described in the case. The students then spend individual time arriving at the diagnosis of the disease and submit a report on their research. This information is shared with the entire class. This novel approach is amenable for use in other medical school years, as well.

Abstract
A challenge of the undergraduate anatomy course at the University of Michigan Medical School is the diverse educational background of students taking the course. Students taking this course belong to kinesiology, Literature, Science & Arts, dental hygiene, biomedical engineering, and pre-pharmacology and other graduate disciplines. Questionable motivation and poor course performance of more than 50% of our students caused us to introduce innovative teaching measures during the Fall 2002 semester. These measures included: 1) regular quizzes, 2) frequent visits to the gross anatomy lab, 3) specific lecture objectives handed out before lectures, 4) PowerPoint® lecture presentations that sometimes included animations of basic anatomical concepts, 5) a “Coursetools” web site that contained lecture objectives and presentations, schedules, announcements, and a discussion forum, and 6) mandatory modules that utilized plastinated specimens and covered essential course concepts. Student questionnaires were administered and analyzed to evaluate the effectiveness of these methods. The aim of introducing survey questionnaires during the semester was to focus attention on specific emerging issues that needed prompt management during the course. Results showed that the majority of students favored the weekly quizzes, lab visits, PowerPoint presentations, and lecture objectives. Also, there was a statistically significant improvement in students’ performance from all disciplines during the final examination compared to the first and second examinations following the introduction of the measures. Although these teaching techniques have not significantly raised students’ mean performance in relation to previous years, the results showed that they were welcomed by the majority of students and that performance was positively enhanced. These measures will be re-implemented during the next semester and their effectiveness further evaluated.

Abstract
At a regional continuing education conference for pharmacists, 278 attendees answered five questions before and after attending a seminar on important topics in sleep medicine. The purpose of the study was to assess the need for sleep medicine education and to determine the effectiveness of the seminar at the conference. On the pre-test, 80% of the pharmacists answered two or fewer questions correctly. After the seminar, on the post-test, 77% of the pharmacists answered three or more questions correctly. The results of this study indicate that continuing education seminars on sleep medicine are beneficial to pharmacists. In addition, this study provides evidence supporting the need for sleep medicine education in this group of health care professionals.

Abstract
This article is based on the authors’ experience with and observations of an academic activity entitled, “Problem Discussions in Medical Ethics”, conducted by the Department of Deontology at Ankara University for more than 13 years. The overall scope of the presentations has actually proven to be more comprehensive than that of Medical Ethics as a definite academic discipline including topics such as medical education; nursing, dental and veterinary ethics; academic life in general;, and women’s issues, which may or may not have a direct relationship with medical ethics. As another methodological point related to our activity, the meaning of the term “problem” is not limited to the event or single case level, but potentially represents many cases which form a group or set due to their similarities to be taken into account in the related ethical (and metaethical) discussions. Within the scope of the present paper, we consider first, the place of the problem solving approach in academic teaching as well as the importance of the continuous all-level discussions in medical ethics. We will discuss the activity in question in the light of a systematization of the topics presented and in that of our critical observations on the preparation and actualization of the presentations.

Several weeks ago I attended our medical student spring formal, an annual event at which students recognize and honor the best teachers and courses in all four years of our curriculum. As the names were called and those receiving awards rose from their seats and stepped forward, I noted that several were members of IAMSE…. Read more »

During the preparation of this edition of the Resource Guide, I was reminded that many of us encounter delays downloading Web pages when using a home computer. In my experience, it is the reason that is most often cited by students for not using the Web outside of the confines of our school’s computer facility…. Read more »

Preliminary findings were presented at the 8th International Ottawa Conference on Medical education and assessment (July 1998) and the 5th Annual Meeting of the International Association of Medical Science Educators (July 2001).

Abstract

Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer among women in the United States. Although the basic science and physical examination aspects of breast cancer education had been included in the curriculum at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences for many years, the psychosocial aspects of the disease process had not been emphasized. When a new Introduction to Clinical Medicine course was added to the curriculum, the basic science and psychosocial aspects of breast cancer were interwoven into a teaching module that has proven to be very effective. The purpose of this paper is to describe this teaching module and discuss its impact.