Purpose
Traditional curricula often segregate biochemistry and physiology concepts within a topic, limiting students’ ability to integrate disciplines into clinical applications. To enhance student understanding of acid-base disorders, we integrated the acid-base lectures in biochemistry and physiology using a unified narrative. This integration was done using a new instructional delivery approach, a video podcast or “vodcast”, to teach students about the interplay between biochemical buffer principles, physiological acid-base homeostasis, and disorders.

Methods
We changed two didactic sessions that were previously divided into a biochemistry and a physiology session. We applied a horizontal integration approach to give students a more holistic view of acid-base disorders. Sessions were delivered via asynchronous “vodcasts” with two faculty members, a biochemist and a physiologist.

Results
A key benefit from this integration was removing redundancies from the lectures that existed when the sessions were separated by discipline. The new integration allowed for an initial focus on key foundational principles of acid-base disorders and later a more complex clinical focus in the following session. This innovative instructional delivery method did require more planning and coordination among involved faculty members than a traditional lecture given by one faculty member. Students seemed enthusiastic about the innovative instructional delivery method.

Conclusions
While students were intrigued by the novel instructional delivery method, many questions remain about student satisfaction with the vodcast and overall understanding and retention of the acid-base disorder content. We are in the process of collecting data and analyzing outcomes of the effectiveness of our teaching innovation.