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<b>Background: </b>Japanese medical student education lacks emphasis on teaching clinical reasoning skills. To partially remedy this situation, we developed a prototypic web-based module for tutors to teach clinical reasoning. We report the medical students’ opinions of this module.<br><b>Methods: </b>Twenty-four students from two Japanese medical universities were randomly assigned to the two tutored virtual classrooms, each classroom with six students, or to the self-study group, 12 students, after taking the Internet-based Sequential Question and Answer pretest. After four weeks, each of the 24 students took the Sequential Question and Answer posttest. The entire 24 students answered a questionnaire about the Sequential Question and Answer tests; all 12 tutored students answered a questionnaire about the web-based tutored module.<br><b>Results: </b>Although both tutored and self-study Sequential Question and Answer posttest scores increased, the increases of the tutored group’s posttest compared to the self-study posttest group were not statistically significant (p = 0.066). Ninety-two percent of the students rated the Sequential Question and Answer tests as an improved way to learn case presentation and clinical reasoning. Moreover, 79% of students felt that the Sequential Question and Answer tests were an effective way to learn clinical information. The tutored students rated the web-based tutored seminars as an ‘excellent to fair’ method to learn clinical reasoning using a five-point ‘excellent to poor’ scale.<br><b>Conclusions: </b>We developed a prototypic web-based module for tutors to teach clinical reasoning to medical students. The students’ opinion supported the modular components of the web-based seminar format, Sequential Question and Answer test, and the tutoring syllabus as an effective way to improve learning clinical reasoning, case presentation, and medical information. Students also suggested refinements of the prototypic module.
ABSTRACT
<b>Background: </b>At present clinical reasoning skills are not systematically taught in Japanese medical universities. We developed a prototypic preliminary module for clinical tutors to introduce clinical reasoning to Japanese medical students. We hypothesized that tutored medical students would outperform self-study students.<br><b>Method: </b>Using the web-based Sequential Question and Answer test that rewarded history and differential diagnosis as proxies for clinical reasoning, we compared the pre and posttest scores of 12 randomized fifth grade tutored students at two universities during four tutor-led 1.5-hour web-based seminars using a structured syllabus to 12 randomized self-study students.<br><b>Results: </b>The tutored and self-study groups’ pretest scores were statistically similar at about 40 out of 100 weighted correct points. The tutored students’ posttest scores were 62 points, significantly greater (p = 0.007) than the pretest mean 42 points, compared to the self-study students’ posttest scores of 52 points, significantly greater (p = 0.012) than pretest mean 40 points. The difference between the two posttest groups was of borderline statistical significance (p = 0.08).<br><b>Conclusions: </b>We successfully assessed a prototypic module for tutors to introduce clinical reasoning to Japanese medical students. The tutored students achieved higher scores than the self-study students. Further research is needed to exploit the potential of our modular clinical reasoning system.
ABSTRACT
The management of influenza has dramatically changed since the introduction of the rapid influenza diagnostic test, or RIDT, and neuraminidase inhibitors (NI). However, it is still far from optimal due to low RIDT sensitivity and problems involving NI such as side effects and the potential emergence of resistant virus.Therefore, we developed a decision-making model for the management of influenza, which includes Kampo medicines in its strategies. First, the severity of patients is evaluated. If a patient is judged at severe or high-risk, intravenous NI would be the main component of treatment. If a patient has neither a severe condition nor is at high-risk, the patient would be asked to choose either NI or Kampo medicine. In the former, RIDT would be used if pretest probability was less than 50%, but it would not be used if it was more than 50%, based on the lack of influence on the post-test probability. For the latter, RIDT would be not used in general as Kampo targets “phenomena”, not the virus <i>per se</i>. This model enables us to optimize the use of RIDT by appropriately selecting patients based on the characteristics of RIDT, and by avoiding unnecessary tests and their misinterpretation.
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: (1) To estimate the prevalence of atrial fibrillation (Af) in the general population of Saitama Prefecture, (2) to identify useful information obtained from subjects' history and laboratory findings for predicting imminent occurrence of Af.<BR>DESIGN: Cross sectional study and retrospective cohort study.<BR>SETTING: Annual health examination of the general population.<BR>PARTICIPANTS: Subjects were 5, 375 men and 8, 419 women with a mean age±standard deviation of 47.2±9.6 and an age range of 18 to 88 years old.<BR>MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Among the 13, 794 participants who underwent conventional 12-lead electrocardiography (ECG) every year from 1994 to 1997, the prevalence of Af was 0.3%. The cross sectional data showed significant differences between male subjects with and without Af regarding age (P<0.0001), current treatment for hypertension (P<0.0001), arrhythmia (P<0.0001), angina pectoris (P<0.05), history of myocardial infarction (P<0.05), perception of palpitation (P<0.0001), perception of irregular pulse (P<0.0001), shortness of breath (P<0.0001), diastolic blood pressure (P<0.05), total cholesterol (P<0.0001), and casual glucose level (P<0.05) . Significant differences were also found between female subjects with and without Af with respect to creatinine (P<0.0001), current treatment of arrhythmia (P<0.0001), perception of palpitation (P<0.0001), perception of irregular pulse (P<0.0001), and HbAlc level (P<0.05) .<BR>The retrospective cohort data identified 22 subjects who had persistent Af during the study period, and 20 (0.15%) who had newly developed Af during this period on the basis of consecutive ECG recordings of the 13, 772 participants in 1994-1996. Logistic regression analysis revealed that there were significant differences in perception of irregular pulse (P=0.0004), history of myocardial infarction (P=0.0134), fatigability (P=0.0243), aging (P=0.0039) and total cholesterol level (P=0.025) for men, and in history of arrhythmia (P=0.0007) for women between the group with and without Af.<BR>The likelihood ratios and the respective 95% confidence intervals (C.I.) for ECG findings to identify the subjects who would develop Af were as follows: ST depression, 14.6 (C.I., 5.1-42) ; ventricular arrhythmia, 14.9 (3.9-56) ; incomplete RBBB, 9.2 (2.4-34) ; supraventricular arrhythmia, 8.9 (1.3-61) ; second-degree atrioventricular block, 342 (32-3624) ; abnormal Q wave, 16.3 (2.4-112) ; left atrial enlargement, 52.7 (7.2-383) .<BR>CONCLUSIONS: Combining data from subjects' histories for the prediction of imminent Af among subjects in the general population is likely to be useful, especially for the elderly male population. Aging in men, in particular, is an important factor when combined with abnormal findings on conventional 12-lead ECG.