One School: Using Teach-Throughs to Ensure Consistency

Presented as a Poster Presentation at 2020 IUSM Education Day

Video modules for online learning: Creating content for the new normal.

15-minute Webinar PresentationIn order to supplement the Evidence based medicine (EBM) curriculum that Ruth Lilly Medical Library teaches to 1st and 2nd year medical undergraduates, two librarians created four short videos on EBM topics. Join us for this interactive session focused on teaching the skills and techniques used in video creation such as: modified story-boarding for script creation and presentation software design, calculation of video length as well as methods used to practice and record the videos. We will provide lessons learned and also have ample time for questions from the audience.ACRL Health Sciences Interest Grou

Context and Contribution: Going Beyond the Research Paper in the Health Sciences

Conference poster presented at the Midwest Medical Library Association Chapter Meeting, October 2-6, 2015 in Louisville, KY

Critical Appraisal Calculations: One Guide to Rule Them All

An at-a-glace guide to critical appraisal calculations for therapy, diagnosis, and harm studies

Tracking COVID Compliance in a Medical Library: An Observational Study

Objectives: Research question: Given a strict, campus-wide mask and social distancing mandate to slow the spread of COVID-19, at what rate is adherence observed in patrons of a large medical library? Methods: At a large medical school in the Midwest, a mask ordinance was implemented to slow the spread of COVID-19 when campus was re-opened in the summer of 2020. All students, faculty, and staff were required to sign a commitment form affirming that they would wear a mask while on campus. By the fall of 2020, many in the community were beginning to experience "pandemic fatigue," which was reflected in the rising number of cases in the state and region. Curious about whether the patrons of the library continued to adhere to the mask mandate when out of sight of the main desk and any enforcement mechanisms, we instituted a compliance check to be performed by a staff member every other hour. Staff observed users of the library, tracking total number of patrons with and without masks. Results: During the observation period of October 2020-March 2021, rates of mask mandate compliance in the library averaged between 87%-100%. While 87% is a relatively low rate of compliance, most of these cases were noted while patrons were sitting at individual, isolated desks. Staff in the library conjecture that this may have been due to misunderstanding on the part of the patrons about when masks were required to be worn. Staff did not a few instances of refusal when patrons were asked to don masks, which were addressed at a higher level of authority. Conclusions: Even with a strong mask mandate and clear guidance from the school, COVID-19 precaution compliance was not perfect. Going forward, library faculty and staff will continue to work with student groups and medical school administration to ensure that our patrons adhere to best practices for protecting the health and safety of the campus community

Information Atrocities: Records and Memory in Post-Dictatorship Latin America

In the latter half of the twentieth century, many countries in Latin America experienced brutal dictatorships marked by state-sponsored violence, persecution of left-leaning individuals and institutions, and most pertinent to this paper, suppression of ideas and information. After the fall of these dictatorships, cultural institutions struggled to administer to the needs of a population looking for answers and a way to move forward. With many "official" records destroyed or altered fundamentally, cultural institutions were forced to employ alternate methods of collection building, assessment, and sharing. These three case studies speak to the efforts employed by these institutions to adjust their policies and service to accommodate a different political landscape and patron base to achieve the goals of recreating public trust and moving forward as a nation in the wake of a dictatorship

Integrating evidence-based medicine skills into a medical school curriculum: a quantitative outcomes assessment

Objectives: This research project aims to determine the potential differential impact of two curricular approaches to teaching evidence-based medicine (EBM) on student performance on an EBM assignment administered during the first year of clerkship. A meaningful result would be any statistically significant difference in scores on the assignment given to measure student performance. Design: In order to assess and compare student learning under the different curricula, the PI and a team of five faculty members blinded to assignment date and other possibly identifying details used a modified version of the previously validated Fresno rubric to retrospectively grade three years’ worth of EBM assignments given to students in clerkship rotations 1-3 (n = 481) during the Internal Medicine clerkship. Specifically, EBM performance in three separate student cohorts were examined. Setting: The study took place at a large Midwestern medical school with nine campuses across the state of Indiana. Participants: Study participants were four hundred eighty-one students who attended the medical school and completed the Internal Medicine clerkship between 2017-2019. Interventions: Prior to the inception of this study, our institution had been teaching EBM within a discrete 2-month time period during medical students’ first year. During a large-scale curricular overhaul, the approach to teaching EBM was changed to a more scaffolded, integrated approach with sessions being taught over the course of two years. In this study, we assess the differential impact of these two approaches to teaching EBM in the first two years of medical school. Main Outcome Measures: We used clerkship-level EBM assignment grades to determine whether there was a difference in performance between those students who experienced the old versus the new instructional model. Clerkship EBM assignments given to the students used identical questions each year in order to have a valid basis for comparison. Additionally, we analyzed average student grades across the school on the EBM portion of Step 1. Results: Four hundred and eighty-one assignments were graded. Mean scores were compared for individual questions and cumulative scores using a one-way Welch ANOVA test. Overall, students performed .99 of a point better on the assignment from Year One (Y1), prior to EBM curriculum integration, to Year Three (Y3), subsequent to EBM integration (p= <.001). Statistically significant improvement was seen on questions measuring students’ ability to formulate a clinical question and critically appraise medical evidence. Additionally, on USMLE Step 1, we found that student scores on the EBM portion of the exam improved from Y1 to Y3. Conclusions: Results of this study suggest that taking a scaffolded, curriculum-integrated approach to EBM instruction during the pre-clinical years increases, or at the very least does not lessen, student retention of and ability to apply EBM concepts to patient care. Although it is difficult to fully attribute students’ retention and application of EBM concepts to the adoption of a curricular model focused on scaffolding and integration, the results of this study show that there are value-added educational effects to teaching EBM in this new format. Overall, this study provides a foundation for new research and practice seeking to improve EBM instruction. Trial Registration: IRB approval (Protocol #1907054875) was obtained for this study