Background: Ambulatory medicine is being increasingly emphasized in undergraduate medical education. Because of the limited availability of real patients, we introduced a standardized patient (SP) encounter program in an ambulatory care setting. Aims: This study was undertaken to assess the usefulness of SPs for teaching undergraduate students clinical skills in ambulatory settings. Method: Third-year medical students met two different SPs, who presented common authentic problems, during internal medicine clerkship. Each SP encounter of 30 min was followed by SP and a tutor's feedback, using a video recording of the SP encounter. We surveyed students for program evaluation purposes at the end of their three-year internal medicine clerkships (from 2006 to 2008). Results: Most students found that the consecutive SP sessions were instructive and helpful. Video recordings of clinical encounters allowed students to reflect on their behavior and receive feedback from tutors. However, students identified several weaknesses of these SP encounters. For example, pre-exposure to the SP scenario reduced tension of the experience and inconsistent feedback from tutors caused confusion. Conclusions: SP encounters in an ambulatory care setting, followed by tutor's feedback based on a video recording, can be used for teaching basic clinical ambulatory care skills.
Cadaver dissection is a key component of anatomy education. Unfortunately, students sometimes regard the process of dissection as uninteresting or stressful. To make laboratory time more interesting and to encourage discussion and collaborative learning among medical students, specially designed tasks were assigned to students throughout dissection. Student response and the effects of the tasks on examination scores were analyzed. The subjects of this study were 154 medical students who attended the dissection laboratory in 2009. Four tasks were given to teams of seven to eight students over the course of 2 weeks of lower limb dissection. The tasks were designed such that the answers could not be obtained by referencing books or searching the Internet, but rather through careful observation of the cadavers and discussion among team members. Questionnaires were administered. The majority of students agreed that the tasks were interesting (68.0%), encouraged team discussion (76.8%), and facilitated their understanding of anatomy (72.8%). However, they did not prefer that additional tasks be assigned during the other laboratory sessions. When examination scores of those who responded positively were compared with those who responded neutrally or negatively, no statistically significant differences could be found. In conclusion, the specially designed tasks assigned to students in the cadaver dissection laboratory encouraged team discussion and collaborative learning, and thereby generated interest in laboratory work. However, knowledge acquisition was not improved.
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