Presentation 1 - A NOVEL APPROACH FOR THE INTEGRATION AND APPLICATION OF MEDICAL BIOCHEMISTRY IN THE MEDICAL SCHOOL CURRICULUM VIA POWERAPPS APPLICATIONS
Best Oral Presentation Award Nominee

Paul Chastain II

University of Illinois, College of Medicine at Chicago, Rockford Campus
 

PURPOSE  We have developed an App that allows students (either alone or in teams; self-guided or guided) to go on biochemical adventures that enable them to integrate their medical and biochemical knowledge with their clinical skills.  METHODS Each adventure starts with a brief overview of the pathway of interest as well as links to relevant resources that allows them to have all the information they need in hand. Students are told an enzyme in this pathway is dysfunctional and the students have to use their biochemical and medical knowledge to predict how elements within various health status panels change in a person with this disorder. Next, the students have to decide how a person would present as a consequence of this metabolic defect. After they press submit, the answer along with a corresponding explanation is revealed to them. Finally, students are given a series of clinical presentations associated with defects in various pathways, and the teams have to determine which pathway/enzyme is defective and to defend how information within the vignette supports their answer.  After entering the evidence, the team presses submit, and the answer along with a corresponding explanation is revealed to them. RESULTS Around 70% of the students rated the PowerApp adventures as excellent or good use of their time (the remainder thought it was a fair use of their time). CONCLUSION We have found that students tend to use the App in groups and like to go on biochemistry adventures together. While most feedback has been extremely positive, most students would like even more clinical vignette examples. The value of the App modules/format is that students can continue using the App after class as a study aid.  The App is easy to develop, alter, and share.

 

Presentation 2 - Harnessing the power of mobile devices in undergraduate medical education to assess the competence, professionalism and progress of students in the clinical learning environment.
Colin Lumsden

University of Manchester

 

Purpose Health science programmes leading to a vocational degree in clinical practice rely on experiential learning to develop the skills required to practice competently and safely. Experiential learning in clinical environments provide the richest learning experiences but are often opportunistic and unpredictable. Assessing performance in clinical placements has traditionally challenging. The rise and ubiquity of mobile devices has opened the possibility of tracking, logging and assessing performance in the clinical learning environment. Methods Manchester medical programme was the first UK medical school to adopt the large-scale use of mobile devices in 2011. All clinical students are issued with iPad (mini) to facilitate their learning and engagement with the medicine programme. This development has allowed for the first time allowed curriculum designers to reliably assess the performance and development of learners in the clinical environment by scaffolding learning, logging evidence and allowing evidence based defensible decisions on learner attainment in diverse clinical placements. This evidence forms part of an assessment matrix designed to assess multiple domains of learner development and provide evidence for high stakes progression decisions. Results To date over 1400 students have engaged in the clinical workplace assessments. Data collected from a diverse array of clinicians, nursing staff and allied healthcare workers on performance has been collected, collated and displayed using individualised electronic dashboards on the proprietary Form2software system and iOS app. We report on the design, delivery, implementation and results of a comprehensive assessment matrix facilitated by the use of mobile devices. Conclusion Mobile devices have become ubiquitous in society with nearly all learners, faculty and clinicians having access to such devices. Using such devices to assess and support learner development has been challenging. We describe a model implementation that could be applicable elsewhere in health sciences education.

Presentation 3 - MULTI-INSTITUTIONAL COLLABORATION TO PROMOTE TRANSFER OF BASIC SCIENCE INTO CLINICAL PRACTICE
Leslie Fall
Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth and Aquifer

 

PURPOSE The integration of basic science into clinical practice lies at the heart of medical education. Successful curricular reform to achieve this goal is dependent upon engaging all stakeholders and change agents in this process, including basic science and clinician faculty and students. We describe a multi-institutional, cross-disciplinary initiative in which students and faculty create tools to promote improved clinical decision making through enhanced transfer of basic science knowledge. METHODS Following a call for participation in June 2018, twelve medical school teams comprised of one basic science and one clinical faculty lead and up to five senior medical students were chosen to participate in the initiative. Selection criteria included level of institutional commitment to integration activities, successful prior collaboration of faculty leads, breadth of basic science and clinical faculty engagement, degree of student engagement, and commitment to project deadlines. Schools were divided into two groups, one to author virtual patient cases and one to author Integrated Illness Scripts, based on nationally developed Integrated Learning Objectives and common clinical presentations. Following kick-off webinars, schools were initially assigned to author the same cases and scripts in order to calibrate product quality and best practices. Teams subsequently authored independent work, in collaboration with basic science and clinical mentors from the initiative leadership team who provided additional expertise and peer review of completed material. RESULTS Over fifty cases and Integrated Illness Scripts are being collaboratively authored and peer-reviewed. Authoring guidelines, quality checklists and peer review processes are being group-designed and utilized by all teams. CONCLUSIONS Collaborative multi-institutional development of curricular tools to support cognitive integration is achievable and results in high-quality tools that meet a broad need. Faculty and students express a high degree of satisfaction from participating in the collaborative development process. Next steps include beta-testing and evaluation of the new tools.