Clare Thomson

A virtual surgery in general practice: evaluation of a novel undergraduate virtual patient learning package

Background: A suite of 10 online virtual patients developed using the IVIMEDS ‘Riverside’ authoring tool has been introduced into our undergraduate general practice clerkship. These cases provide a multimedia-rich experience to students. Their interactive nature promotes the development of clinical reasoning skills such as discriminating key clinical features, integrating information from a variety of sources and forming diagnoses and management plans. Aims: To evaluate the usefulness and usability of a set of online virtual patients in an undergraduate general practice clerkship. Method: Online questionnaire completed by students after their general practice placement incorporating the System Usability Scale questionnaire. Results: There was a 57% response rate. Ninety-five per cent of students agreed that the online package was a useful learning tool and ranked virtual patients third out of six learning modalities. Questions and answers and the use of images and videos were all rated highly by students as useful learning methods. The package was perceived to have a high level of usability among respondents. Conclusion: Feedback from students suggest that this implementation of virtual patients, set in primary care, is user friendly and rated as a valuable adjunct to their learning. The cost of production of such learning resources demands close attention to design.

Content and discontent: a qualitative exploration of obstacles to elearning engagement in medical students

BackgroundElearning is ubiquitous in healthcare professions education. Its equivalence to ‘traditional’ educational delivery methods is well established. There is a research imperative to clarify when and how to use elearning most effectively to mitigate the potential of it becoming merely a ‘disruptive technology.’ Research has begun to broadly identify challenges encountered by elearning users. In this study, we explore in depth the perceived obstacles to elearning engagement amongst medical students. Sensitising concepts of achievement emotions and the cognitive demands of multi-tasking highlight why students’ deeply emotional responses to elearning may be so important in their learning.MethodsThis study used focus groups as a data collection tool. A purposeful sample of 31 participated. Iterative data gathering and analysis phases employed a constant comparative approach to generate themes firmly grounded in participant experience.ResultsKey themes that emerged from the data included a sense of injustice, passivity and a feeling of being ‘lost at sea’. The actual content of the elearning resource provided important context.ConclusionsThe identified themes have strong emotional foundations. These responses, interpreted through the lens of achievement emotions, have not previously been described. Appreciation of their importance is of benefit to educators involved in curriculum development or delivery.

Online learning in clinical skills: the Belfast experience

A s with many other disciplines, e-learning has gained popularity in undergraduate medical education, and is now established in most medical schools. Despite the extensive introduction of such technologies, their effectiveness and utility have often been difficult to quantitfy. Concerns that the uptake of such educational mediums may be influenced more by novelty than by pedagogical evidence, has driven the need for educationalists to share their experiences of e-learning. This article describes our experience of developing an online learning resource that supplements the learning of basic clinical skills for our undergraduate medical students.

Awarding global grades in OSCEs: Evaluation of a novel eLearning resource for OSCE examiners

Background: A novel online resource has been developed to aid OSCE examiner training comprising a series of videos of OSCE performances that allow inter-examiner comparison of global grade decisions. Aims: To evaluate this training resource in terms of usefulness and ability to improve examiner confidence in awarding global grades in OSCEs. Method: Data collected from the first 200 users included global grades awarded, willingness to change grades following peer comparison and confidence in awarding grades before and after training. Results: Most (86.5%) agreed that the resource was useful in developing global grade scoring ability in OSCEs, with a significant improvement in confidence in awarding grades after using the training package (p < 0.001). Conclusions: This is a useful and effective online training package. As an adjunct to traditional training it offers a practical solution to the problem of availability of examiners.

Safe moving and handling of patients: an interprofessional approach.

A gap in the medical undergraduate curriculum on safe moving and handling of patients was identified, and a project to enhance moving and handling education for undergraduates in various healthcare disciplines was undertaken. A team of nurses, doctors, physiotherapists and e-learning professionals developed a cross-discipline e-learning resource, piloted with medical and nursing students at Queens University Belfast. One outcome of the project was the development of a deeper recognition of the common curriculum across healthcare disciplines.

Interdisciplinarity defines our identity as medical educators

Medical education is a broad church. As a young interdisciplinary group of educationalists we discuss some aspects of the relevance of interdisciplinarity to medical education, using our own experiences as exemplars.

Deaf awareness training in medical schools

13 With these circumstances in mind, we established a medical English course for undergraduates. This course consists of two parts: basic medical English and doctor–patient communication. Basic medical English is intended to equip the students with basic medical terms and stylistic features of medical articles. Doctor-patient communication aims to improve the skills in history-taking and physical examination. Cultural aspects were introduced throughout the course. First, a healthy attitude towards foreign cultures was developed. Empathy was advocated and ethnocentrism was opposed to help the students consciously shake off the psychological fetters from their own cultural stereotypes and be open and tolerant to different beliefs and concepts from other cultures (Lukens 1978). Second, essential knowledge of foreign cultures was introduced, especially of medical ethics, religion, psychology, history and customs. Third, communicative skills were trained, for instance, how to build a common ground to make others willing to speak or how to use your body language to make yourself expressive. The students felt more confident in writing research papers and talking to foreign patients after the course. Setting up a medical English course can be an effective way of developing cross-cultural competence in Chinese medical students.