Traditional Teaching versus Integrated Teaching in Undergraduate Medical Curriculum, a Comparative Study

ABSTRACT

Integration in medical education means coordination in the teaching learning activities to ensure a harmonious functioning of the educational process.1 Integration of eaching is defined as the organisation of teaching matter to interrelate or unify the subjects which are frequently taught in separate academic courses or departments.2 It means bridging or clubbing together connections between academic knowledge and practicals.3 It is often called by other terminologies like synergistic teaching, inter-connected teaching, thematic teaching because on the same topic different subject experts /same teacher will deliver their knowledge at the same time. Shoemaker has defined, an integrated curriculum as “education that is organized in such a way that it cuts across subject matter lines, bringing together various aspects of the curriculum into meaningful association to focus upon broad areas of study.”4 By integration the ossification of different boundaries is lost and the subject loses its own identity due to correlation with other departments in related subject matter. Objectives: 1.To study the level of Pre-existing knowledge of 1st year MBBS students regarding thyroid gland. 2. To assess the difference between the traditional and integrated lecture method of teaching on thyroid gland. Methods: This is a cross-sectional interventional study conducted in the lecture theatre of S.C.B. Medical College, Cuttack, amongst the 1st year MBBS students of the 2017-18 batch. A total of 240 students participated in the study and they were equally divided into 2 groups based on random allocation. Results: 6.27 ± 2.32 and 5.41 ± 1.81 are the mean marks secured in pre-test by Gp-A and Gp-B respectively. The difference in the mean marks secured in pre-test is not found to be statistically significant. Out of the120 Gp-A students the mean marks secured in pre test and post test was 6.27 ± 2.32 and 15.31 ± 1.54 respectively. A comparative analysis in the total marks secured in post test of Gp-A and Gp-B showed that, Gp-A students secured remarkably more marks in post test than Gp-B and this was found statistically significant. Conclusion: Integrated learning helps the students to understand and correlate the different clinical problems/cases and enhances clinical learning. On long term basis it helps to improve the academic standard of the doctors, improve diagnosis of diseases and management providing better health care.