MSE Articles

ABSTRACT

For a group of first-year students at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, the statistics and trends indicative of the widening gap between the medical establishment and the Baltimore city population propelled them to create an outreach program, Baltimore Community Medical Outreach (BCMO). The purpose of the program is to empower city residents with the knowledge and consciousness required to establish contact with a health care provider as an initial step in addressing their medical needs. In its first year of operation, the group delivered a series of workshops at a local village center on a range of topics including HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), hypertension, diabetes, and nutrition. The process of information dissemination, coupled with the audience’s sharing of experiences, generated a collective knowledge that the audience could subsequently use to surmount the obstacles to patient-provider contact. The medical students learned many things in turn, including the transient holding power of medical advice, the need to tailor health guidelines to a specific population, and the many factors, such as family history of a disease, that drive a patient to action.

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of a structured, interactive remedial tutorial intervention program for at risk students. During the period studied, between 10 and 20% of the first year students failed the unit 1 gross and developmental anatomy examination. These students were provided with a highly structured series of weekly interactive remedial tutorials (3-4 hours each for 13 weeks) that specifically involved the application of factual knowledge to clinical problem solving. Their performances on subsequent departmental and National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) subject examinations were evaluated. By developing a remedial tutorial program in an interactive small group format with specific goals the at-risk students built confidence and acquired the cognitive ability to solve clinical problems. As a result, they successfully completed the anatomy course. Data collected from the last five years firmly supports the concept that, independent of a student’s prior experience, consistent practice with problem solving enables successful completion of the first year course.

ABSTRACT

During the preclinical phase of medical school, most students rely on instructor-provided lecture notes and required textbooks, and note taking during lectures. By the time medical students begin their clinical clerkships, they are accustomed to accepting the word of authority at face value. Paradoxically, physicians must be able to critically evaluate and solve patient problems from a rapidly expanding body of biomedical literature. To address this discrepancy and to help show the relevance of histology to medicine, we implemented a program to introduce critical reading of biomedical literature throughout our 21-week histology course. During weeks one through four, students in the class of 2003 (N = 224) were randomly divided into 56 groups (n = 4) and taught how to conduct a MEDLINE search. Groups were required to submit a biomedical publication abstract from their MEDLINE search that contained histological and clinical elements by week eight. Subsequently, students attended two 60-minute critical appraisal seminars. By week 15, groups submitted a one-page summary of their selected journal publication and answered a set of critical appraisal questions. During weeks 16-19, students prepared a four-minute oral presentation. Three years later, these students were asked to assess the value of our critical appraisal program. Most respondents agreed and strongly agreed (96.1%) that the time needed to complete Critical Appraisal program was manageable. Nearly three-quarters of the respondents (74.5%) agreed and strongly agreed that the Critical Appraisal program demonstrated the relevance of histology to medicine, helped in other courses, and fostered collegiality among classmates. More than fourth-fifths of respondents (86.3%) agreed and strongly agreed that the Critical appraisal program was worth the effort. The critical appraisal program described herein is a resource-efficient method for introducing critical appraisal of biomedical literature to first-year medical students within the context of a first-year basic science course.

ABSTRACT

This study investigated student acceptance of a digital atlas of electron microscopy (EM) in the 2001 medical histology course at the University of Kentucky. The course’s set of electron micrographs was digitized and incorporated into an instructional multimedia program using Macromedia Authorware 5.2. Student attitudinal survey data was collected prior to digital EM atlas use and again at the end of the semester. Most students (88%) reported using the digital EM atlas for study at home rather than on campus, while only 31% reported using similar learning tools at home prior to medical school. A significantly higher proportion of students used the EM atlas for independent study than they did with prior computer-assisted instruction (CAI). In addition, the reported frequency of CAI use decreased between pre- and post-use surveys. Prior to medical school, 29% of students reported using CAI routinely, while only 6% of students used the digital EM atlas on a routine, weekly basis. Instead, most students (83%) used the digital EM atlas primarily as a review during the week prior to examination. Nevertheless, students were significantly more enthusiastic (more respondents strongly agreed) that their study efficiency and exam performance was increased after using the EM atlas as compared with other CAI they had used. Students’ prior histology experience or lack thereof, had no significant effect on their attitudes toward or use of the digital EM atlas.

Over the past several months substantial changes have occurred with our journal. The Basic Science Educator has evolved into the Journal of the International Association of Medical Science Educators (JIAMSE). This change is manifested not only by a new name, but a restructuring and redesign of the journal and all of its Web-Based components. As… Read more »

For some time now, our school has been investing in high-technology equipped classrooms and workshops that train the faculty in the use of presentation software and other computer applications. The result is that many instructors have digitized their lecture materials and stored them on CD-ROM, ZipTM disks, personal computers or local networks. As a morphologist… Read more »

In any field of endeavor requiring manual skills and cognitive judgment, there are two large categories of people. The first are the technicians. They are highly trained in the operation of the equipment or performance of various procedures. Their knowledge and experience is limited to the operational aspects pertinent to their jobs. Though they are… Read more »

Medicine is expensive to teach. It can in no event be taught out of fees. (Abraham Flexner, 1910, pages 141-142)1 INTRODUCTION During the second half of the twentieth century, medical school financing in the United States underwent major changes as research and then clinical practice became significant sources of revenue. The availability of these revenue… Read more »

ABSTRACT

A recent study evaluating utilization of computer-aided instruction revealed a wide disparity among individual medical student use of computer resources. We tested the hypothesis that the frequency and length of medical student logins to the school??bf?s computer network correlated with their personality preferences. Personality preferences of students (n=236) were obtained using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) test. Computer utilization was quantified from network logs that recorded frequency and length of logins to the network. Individual login data were sorted by personality preference and statistically analyzed. Students with personality preferences that included Introversion (vs. Extroversion), iNtuition (vs. Sensing), Thinking (vs. Feeling) and Perceiving (vs. Judging) tended to use computers the most. Groupings of preferences revealed that ??bf?ITP??bf? types logged in significantly more often than ??bf?EFJ??bf? types regardless of the N/S dimension. ??bf?NTP??bf? types logged in for significantly longer time than the ??bf?SFJ??bf? regardless of the E/I dimension. These results suggest that using computers is not a natural inclination for many students, which may account for the wide disparity in student use of computer-aided learning.

ABSTRACT

The objective of the present study was to create and evaluate an on-line learning objective answer database. The goal of the answer database was to make information about, and/or answers to, learning objectives that students were provided with in their lecture notes available to them anytime. Our hypothesis was threefold: i) that student satisfaction with the availability and access to the learning objective answers would be high, ii) that having the answers made available to them would not affect student performance in the course, raising or lowering, the class average artificially, and iii) that less instructor time would be spent discussing routine issues/questions, freeing up office hours to deal with students with more serious problems with the course content. The answer database was created using Filemaker Pro 4.1 ^R and housed on Macintosh computers in faculty members’ offices. The effectiveness of the database was evaluated over a 3-year period and compared with the previous 3-year period in which the database was not used. Evaluation methods included student and faculty surveys and numerical assessments of overall course and database rating and average course grades. Results indicate that there is no significant difference in student satisfaction and grades with or without the database, while faculty time spent in office hours and answering routine questions is decreased.

ABSTRACT

The content and outcomes of a learning module, which focuses on the issues of patient self-medication and physician-patient communication, is described. The stimulus for discussion examines patient self-medication with herbal substances commonly used to address neurological complaints. The module is best employed in small group settings with a faculty facilitator. Student learning outcomes are: recognize the importance of patient self-medication behaviors and of obtaining a complete medication history, understand the concept of untoward effects of medications, recognize the quality of clinical data available on alternative and complementary drug therapies, and understand the physiological effects of four herbal substances commonly used by patients for self-medication.