Graduates from a traditional medical curriculum evaluate the effectiveness of their medical curriculum through interviews

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In 1996 The University of Liverpool reformed its medical course from a traditional lecture-based course to an integrated PBL curriculum. A project has been underway since 2000 to evaluate this change. Part of this project has involved gathering retrospective views on the relevance of both types of undergraduate education according to graduates. This paper focuses on the views of traditional Liverpool graduates approximately 6 years after graduation.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>From February 2006 to June 2006 interviews took place with 46 graduates from the last 2 cohorts to graduate from the traditional Liverpool curriculum.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The graduates were generally happy with their undergraduate education although they did feel there were some flaws in their curriculum. They felt they had picked up good history and examination skills and were content with their exposure to different specialties on clinical attachments. They were also pleased with their basic science teaching as preparation for postgraduate exams, however many complained about the overload and irrelevance of many lectures in the early years of their course, particular in biochemistry. There were many different views about how they integrated this science teaching into understanding disease processes and many didn't feel it was made relevant to them at the time they learned it. Retrospectively, they felt that they hadn't been clinically well prepared for the role of working as junior doctor, particularly the practical aspects of the job nor had enough exposure to research skills. Although there was little communication skills training in their course they didn't feel they would have benefited from this training as they managed to pick up had the required skills on clinical attachments.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These interviews offer a historical snapshot of the views of graduates from a traditional course before many courses were reformed. There was some conflict in the interviews about the doctors enjoying their undergraduate education but then saying that they didn't feel they received good preparation for working as a junior doctor. Although the graduates were happy with their undergraduate education these interviews do highlight some of the reasons why the traditional curriculum was reformed at Liverpool.</p

To determine the level of satisfaction among medical students of a public sector medical university regarding their academic activities

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>An ongoing evaluation system is essential to determine if the academic system in place has worked to produce a better product, hence the objective of our study was to evaluate the satisfaction level among medical students regarding their academic teaching and assessment method and what measures will they suggest for the future to rectify the current situation.</p> <p>This questionnaire based cross sectional study was conducted in a public sector medical university from February to July 2010. A well structured questionnaire was administered to a random sample of 375 final year medical students. However 292 of the students provided informed consent and filled in the questionnaire which included their demographic profile as well as questions in line with the study objective. Data was entered in a Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS version.16) and analyzed using descriptive statistics.</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>The male to female ratio in our study was 1:2. Most of the students (57.2%) were dissatisfied with the quality of teaching in the university. Fifty-seven percent of the participants believed that the current standard of their institute were not at par with those of international medical universities. BCQ's were the mode of examination questions preferred by the majority of the students. Most of the students (66.1%) wanted the university to conduct career planning seminars to help them plan their career.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>These results suggest that the students of public sector medical universities are unsatisfied from current academic facilities and teaching activities. Students recommend increased emphasis on better lectures and practical training as well as a need to incorporate career planning sessions for the students to help plan them their future career paths.</p

Benefits of off-campus education for students in the health sciences: a text-mining analysis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In Japan, few community-based approaches have been adopted in health-care professional education, and the appropriate content for such approaches has not been clarified. In establishing community-based education for health-care professionals, clarification of its learning effects is required. A community-based educational program was started in 2009 in the health sciences course at Gunma University, and one of the main elements in this program is conducting classes outside school. The purpose of this study was to investigate using text-analysis methods how the off-campus program affects students.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In all, 116 self-assessment worksheets submitted by students after participating in the off-campus classes were decomposed into words. The extracted words were carefully selected from the perspective of contained meaning or content. With the selected terms, the relations to each word were analyzed by means of cluster analysis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Cluster analysis was used to select and divide 32 extracted words into four clusters: cluster 1—“actually/direct,” “learn/watch/hear,” “how,” “experience/participation,” “local residents,” “atmosphere in community-based clinical care settings,” “favorable,” “communication/conversation,” and “study”; cluster 2—“work of staff member” and “role”; cluster 3—“interaction/communication,” “understanding,” “feel,” “significant/important/necessity,” and “think”; and cluster 4—“community,” “confusing,” “enjoyable,” “proactive,” “knowledge,” “academic knowledge,” and “class.”</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The students who participated in the program achieved different types of learning through the off-campus classes. They also had a positive impression of the community-based experience and interaction with the local residents, which is considered a favorable outcome. Off-campus programs could be a useful educational approach for students in health sciences.</p