Improving the Literacy of Medical Students: A Collective Knowledge Management Effort by the University for Development Studies Medical School in Ghana and the Community Surrounding the University

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to show how a collective knowledge management effort was undertaken in a low-tech environment yields outcomes that benefit all participants of the effort-students and staff of a medical school, the medical profession in the community, paramedics, and the community at large. It also demonstrates that acquainting students with knowledge management skills early and improving their information literacy. If they can effectively manage their knowledge resources in close connection with all members of the society around their school, the benefits will be improving academic efficiency, diagnostic effectiveness, and feedback from medical institutions and patients. The study descends from the Medical Library Association's definition of health information literacy. It uses a survey at the University for Development Studies (UDS) in Tamale, Ghana, to examine the information and literacy skills of its medical students. Also, it explores the level of awareness of the various databases to which the university library is subscribed, the benefits of information literacy skills, and the challenges that students face in identifying and using information sources. From there, the paper explores avenues for improving the situation of the students of which the optimal is conjoining resources in and outside the medical school. Linking faculty, students, and medical professionals in the university's local environment in a collective endeavour for enhancing the literacy skills proper can result in a shared inventory of tools that help to discriminate, which information is needed and which is redundant. From this foundation, students would develop abilities to understand knowledge management and know how to apply it in their specific field of professionalization. The sample was selected from doctoral students in a single institution in the field of education. Also, the sample was self-selected and relatively small. There is a caveat, therefore, for generalizing the findings to other doctoral student populations. This study is useful to health administrators and faculty members, because issues concerning the importance of information literacy skills do not only apply to UDS, Tamale, but to other medical institutions in Africa as well. The study provides university libraries with reliable data on the need for and the effectiveness of information literacy instruction and it enables the librarians to strategize how to improve the instructions they provide. The medical profession highly depends on the adequacy of diagnosis and therapy selection, and for this, any medical professional must be capable to access and use state of the art information sources. There are only a few studies around the topic of medical literacy and almost none for developing countries. But the results of the other studies corroborate the findings of this paper to a great extent.