An assessment of the learning styles of first year medical and dental students of North Bengal Medical College, Darjeeling, West Bengal, India

Background: Learning is the act of acquiring, modifying and reinforcing existing knowledge, behavior, skills and values. This phenomenon of learning is dominated by an individual’s learning style. Learning style is a popular concept in psychology and education, and it refers to how a person learns best. This study aims to identify the Learning Styles of the first year MBBS and BDS students at NBMC by administering the questionnaire of the VARK model.Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed in the Department of Physiology at North Bengal Medical College, West Bengal after. The VARK questionnaire 7.8 version was administered to 180 first year MBBS and BDS students from the 2017-2018 batch who had volunteered for the study. The Questionnaire consisted of 16 questions, along with a scoring chart. Students were allowed to choose more than one option. If in majority of the questions they opted for a single sensory modality they were considered as unimodal learners and if they chose multiple options, they were recognized as multimodal learners.Results: The study showed 57% of the students to be multimodal learners and 43% to be unimodal learners. Read/Write was the most preferred (31.22%) sensory modality followed by kinesthetic mode (29.57%).Conclusions: As majority of our students are multimodal learners teachers should incorporate active teaching and learning strategies to cater to all types of learners. Also, as the most preferred method is Read/Write which includes googling and the use of internet to browse for information, we must try and incorporate e-learning into our curriculum.

A study of cardiovascular sympathetic function tests during different phases of menstrual cycle in young females

Background:  Menstrual cycle is a regular coordinated physiological change in non-pregnant women. The variation of hormonal concentrations during different phases of the menstrual cycle has a profound influence on autonomic and metabolic activities. The present study was designed to assess the cardiovascular sympathetic functions during different phases of menstrual cycle in normal healthy eumenorrheic females.Methods:  Fifty females in the age group of 18-25 years were selected for the study. Non-invasive cardiovascular sympathetic function tests were performed during different phases of the menstrual cycle using RMS Polyrite D.Results: Results were analyzed using paired ‘t’ test. Resting blood pressure, blood pressure response to isometric handgrip test and cold pressor test were statistically significant higher (p-value <0.05), in the secretory phase as compared to menstrual and proliferative phase. Blood pressure response to orthostatic test was statistically significant between the proliferative and secretory phase and between menstrual and secretory phase (p-value <0.05).Conclusion: Our study shows that sympathetic activity is highest during the secretory phase of the menstrual cycle and lowest in the proliferative phase as compared to the menstrual phase. This higher sympathetic activity may be correlated with higher estrogen and progesterone levels during the secretory phase of the menstrual cycle. The study also emphasizes the complex relationship between ovarian hormones and autonomic regulatory systems.

Efficacy of case-based learning as an adjunct to traditional teaching learning methods in Physiology.

Introduction: The present study was undertaken with the objective to assess the efficacy of clinical case history based modular teaching learning method on the performance of undergraduate medical students as an adjunct to the traditional teaching methods in physiology. Materials and Methods: The present study was performed on first professional MBBS students of two consecutive batches of Nilratan Sircar Medical College, Kolkata. After the first semester examination was taken, a significant deviation in teaching-learning method was employed. No case histories were discussed or introduced to the students of batch 2009-2010, batch 2010-2011 but they had been administered clinical case history based modules. Second semester examination was conducted where 25% of the questions were based on case histories for both batches while the remaining 75% of the questions consisted of non-case based items. Results: There had been no significant difference in performance (p = 0.246) in the first semester examination between the two batches. However, a significant difference (p < 0.05) was observed between the performances of the students of these two batches in case based items with batch 2010- 2011 doing better. More importantly, performance of the students between these two batches differed significantly (p < 0.05) in favour of batch 2010-2011, where the marks obtained by them in non-case based items in the second semester examination was considered. Discussion: The authors concluded that clinical case based modules, when used as an adjunct to didactic lectures, not only served to enhance students’ skill in tackling case based items, but also developed their critical thinking and higher ordered learning such that they became more adept at solving non case based items.