Novel ideas and approaches to learning medical sciences.

Medicine is a progressive discipline for medical students who are going to be future doctors. Therefore to determine the opinion of students regarding the 2nd Professional M.B.B.S. subject, teaching methodology, reforms to be introduced, computer and Internet use and its application in teaching learning process this study was done. 475 students were given a questionnaire which consisted of 2-5 options. Questionnaire consisted of 2 parts. First part was about demographic characteristic, second part was about the subject 465 students in the age group 19-24 yr with male female ration 1:1, mostly from northern India were included in the study. Forensic Medicine emerged as the favorite subject followed by Pharmacology, Pathology and Microbiology. 40.86% (190) wanted more of clinically oriented classes, problem based learning and use of audiovisual aids. 72.04% (335) wanted integrated teaching curriculum. So in our opinion we can adopt a curriculum which is clinically oriented, integrated, revised pattern with computer application and internet use. This will make the teaching learning process in the medical sciences more effective and relevant to the health of the society.

Comparative assessment of multiple choice questions versus short essay questions in pharmacology examinations.

This retrospective study compared the performance of medical students in multiple choice questions (MCQs) and short essay questions (SEQs). During the 3 year analysis, 533 students had an average score of 51.34% (SD 9.9) in the SEQ and 64.71%(SD 9.9)in the MCQs. Regression analysis showed a significant correlation(r=0.64, P<0.01) between MCQs and SEQs. When student performance was grouped by final course grade, a statistically significant correlation between MCQs and SEQs scores existed only for the 405 students who received a passing grade (r=0.21, P<0.01). The MCQ and SEQ scores were not correlated for the 128 students who failed (r=0.11, P=0.08) or for 70 students who achieved distinctions (r=-0.27, P=0.13). MCQ scores were significantly higher (P<0.01) than SEQ for each of the groups when analyzed by the two-way ANOVA test. The result of this study suggests that for most students, the strong correlation between MCQ and SEQ indicates that student performance was independent of testing format. For students at either end of the performance spectrum, the lack of correlation suggests that the performance in one of the testing format had a strong influence on the final course grade. In addition, those students who failed the course were likely to be weak in both testing modalities, whereas students in all grade groups were more likely to perform better in the MCQs than SEQs.

Implementation of task-based and problem-based pharmacotherapy course for pre-clinical medical students

Pharmacology, like other basic science disciplines, is still taught didactically in many medical schools. Increasing number of drugs, changes on general principles of mechanisms of drug action and more information on properties of drugs require innovative approaches to undergraduate education. Research in medical and pharmaceutical education is increasingly utilizing a variety of innovative teaching methods to ultimately improve retention of knowledge. This paper describes implementation of new task-based and problem-based pharmacotherapy course for 3rd year pre-clinical medical students at Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Omdurman Islamic University