ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: The Dundee Ready Educational Environment Measure (DREEM) is a valid instrument to evaluate the educational environment of institutions. This quantitative study aimed to discover if applying interactive educational approaches to a component of a traditionally taught medical curriculum improved the educational environment, as measured by the DREEM. METHODS: The bilingual Arabic-English DREEM questionnaire was distributed twice to all third-year medical students (273 students) at the Hashemite University in Jordan. The first data collection occurred at the completion of a traditionally taught component of the Neurology module and the second data collection at the end of an interactively taught component of the same module. A paired t-test was used to compare the results. RESULTS: The total DREEM score for the innovative interactive course was 120.04/200 (from 183 questionnaires) and for the traditionally taught course was 114.69/200 (from 198 questionnaires). Of the five DREEM sub-scales, the interactive course scored statistically significantly higher than the traditionally taught course for "perceptions of learning" and "perceptions of atmosphere" (p-value 0.013 and 0.011, respectively). The interactively taught course was particularly valued by students for being participative, student-centered, and developing their professional competence. The lowest scoring item for both courses was "there is a good support system for students who get stressed." DISCUSSION: This study demonstrated that students value interactive learning environments and that there is benefit in introducing these components to a traditionally taught medical curriculum, when it may not be feasible to bring innovation to the entire medical curriculum due to resource constraints. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40670-021-01359-y.
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: While appendicitis is considered one of most common acute surgical conditions, several studies have reported abnormal histopathological findings in appendectomy specimens; however, sending all appendices to histopathology is not yet routinely done.Here we report many unusual findings. Those unusual findings played a role not only in confirming acute appendicitis as a cause of the presentation in some cases but also discovering etiologies that mimic it with great impact on its management. METHODS: Between January 2011 and December 2017, a total of 1510 patients were operated with appendectomy for a primary diagnosis of acute appendicitis. Among them, a total of 72 patients had incidental histopathologic findings in association with acute appendicitis or other pathologies instead of acute appendicitis. A retrospective analysis for those 72 patients was performed with all data being retrieved from the electronic health record system. RESULTS: Patients ages ranged between 4 and 71 years with a mean age equal to 23.1 years (SD = 14.2). Majority of patients were women (n = 52; 72.2%). Sixty of the seventy-two cases were seen in patients with negative appendectomies (n = 333) with an overall rate of 18% among this group of patients. The remaining 12 patients had additional findings in histopathology specimens beside acute appendicitis (n = 1131) with an overall rate of 1%. The most commonly reported pathologies were serositis, ovarian cysts, and Enterobius vermicularis in descending frequency. CONCLUSION: Identification of unusual histopathological findings during microscopic examination of resected appendices is more common in female patients and in patients with negative appendectomy. histopathologic assessment of specimens will allow detection of congenital, infectious or malignant pathologies that mimic acute appendicitis clinically even in the absence appendicitis microscopically.