Teaching medicine with the help of "Dr. House".

TV series such as "House MD", "Grey´s Anatomy" or "Emergency Room" are well perceived by medical students. Seminars featuring medical TV series such as "House MD" might serve as door-opener to attract medical students to learn more about rare diseases. The TV series "House MD" is troublesome for the main character Dr. House is an excellent diagnostician but at the same time a rather misanthropic person. Therefore, lecturing medicine with the help of "House MD" requires constant evaluation. From 2008 to 2016 we are using the well-known TV series "House MD" continuously to attract medical students and teach them about rare diseases as well as diagnostic strategies. We collected from 213 students a detailed questionnaire assessing their learning experience. 76.6% of our students (n = 157) reported to watching medical dramas on a regular basis. The Dr. House seminar was compared to traditional seminars and our students reported an improved learning effect (69.9%), better concentration (89.7%), higher motivation to participate (88.7%), and more fun (86.7%) (all p<0.001). The students see Dr. House's behavior quite critically. Likert assessment on a 5-point scale identified strong disagreement with Dr. House´s interpersonal skills in dealing with his colleagues (median = 1) and patients (median = 1). At the same time, the students strongly agreed with his outstanding diagnostic (median = 5) and therapeutic capabilities (median = 4). Medical students visiting a Dr. House teaching seminar are highly motivated to learn more about rare diseases. They were positively influenced by TV series such as Dr. House to improve their diagnostic and clinical skills. At the same time, they are critical enough not to see Dr. House as a role model for their own personality. Well performed medical TV shows such as Dr. House can successfully be used in an educational setting to motivate medical students to come into seminars to learn more about rare diseases.

How to successfully implement E-learning for both students and teachers.

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES: Electronic learning (e-learning) may provide a means to enhance learning efficacy. However, introduction of e-learning often fails. We describe a strategy of how an e-learning curriculum was successfully implemented. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The curriculum was designed based on published evidence. It consists of self-directed learning, an online discussion forum, and discussion rounds. The e-content in nuclear medicine and radiotherapy was produced by the k-MED team of medical authors, web designers, and psychologists. The online courses were delivered via a dedicated learning management system. The e-content for diagnostic radiology and physics was provided as PDF/HTML script by the respective teachers who objected to participate in the k-MED project. The exam was taken online. Online evaluation of the curriculum by the students was taken at the end of the course. RESULTS: The new curriculum proved very effective. The time for the preparation for the clinical part of the radiology course could be reduced from 4 to 2 weeks. The students particularly enjoyed the self-directed learning. Although the material provided by k-MED received 90%-99% positive scores, the HTML and PDF scripts scored worse (13%-67% positive ratings). The positive results of the evaluation convinced the teachers responsible for physics and diagnostic radiology to participate in k-MED. CONCLUSIONS: As our example shows, new e-learning curricula can successfully be introduced. The strategy of implementation should be based on the existing evidence from the literature. The new curriculum helped to increase the efficacy of teaching and save time as the duration of the respective part of the course could be reduced by half.