ABSTRACT
Clinical bed side teaching to learn the art and science of reaching an appropriate diagnosis is the most important part of training of medical students. Transition from basic science teaching to the complex world of clinical problem solving dealing with real patients is a difficult task to which some adapt quickly while for others it is a challenging proposition. Clinical faculty needs to focus on facilitating this transition helping medical students adjust and adapt to their new roles as future doctors
Study design: Cross sectional non comparative study
Place and duration of study: Gastroenterology Department, Shaikh Zayed Postgraduate Mediical Institute, Lahore from March to May 2013
Methodology: A total of twenty seven 3[rd] year MBBS students already experienced in history taking and clinical examination techniques were included. Facilitator adopted a constructivist approach with schema activation recalling applied aspects of anatomy, physiology and biochemistry relevant to diagnostic approach to 6 patient scenarios of which one is presented. A 7 item questionnaire recorded responses of students on a 5-point Likert scale
Results: Seventy seven percent medical students reported an improved ability to appreciate the relevance of knowledge gained in basic sciences to bed side teaching. Role of teacher was declared positive by 83%, 85% had improved their ability to correlate basic sciences to clinical inferences. Seventy five percent appreciated that mistakes identified helped them in improving performance with 92% confident of applying clinical reasoning skills obtained in solving future clinical problems
Conclusion: Clinical teaching should be based on the principles of adult learning employing a constructivist approach. Linking previous knowledge of basic sciences to the information obtained from bed side examination is the key to help medical students learn the art and science of medicine and become lifelong self-directed learners
ABSTRACT
Background: Educational developers argue that the way students learn is not just based on individual characteristics, rather it is a dynamic process including personal experiences, teaching methods, assessment protocols and subject matter. We analyzed the reliability of a standard research instrument in elucidating different learner types amongst medical students
Methods: Second year MBBS students from two medical colleges in the Punjab were asked to complete the Approaches and Study Skills Inventory [ASSIST] instrument comprising of four sections. The second section consists of 52 items that assess study approaches in three different scales: Deep, Strategic and Surface Apathetic - against a Likert-type scale. Cronbach's alpha estimation was used to check the reliability of the scales and subscales
Results: The alpha values for the main scales range from 0.57 for the Surface Apathetic Approach, and 0.75 each for Deep and Strategic Approaches, indicating low and high levels of internal consistency respectively. The results for the subscales for our sample ranged from 0.51 to 0.67
Conclusions: Our alpha scores are in congruence with various international research findings, except that of Surface Apathetic Approach score. Further research is required on this variation. Furthermore, this inventory may be used for classifying students on entry into the MBBS program in order to 'adjust' teaching methods and techniques. Further follow up analysis of the same student body is expected to yield valuable research data about medical student learning practices and how they change during their formative undergraduate years