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Perception of health-related case studies in the context of introduction to clinical medicine course: students’ and teachers’ perspective

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Abstract

Background

Integrating theoretical and practical knowledge and stimulating students’ active learning is the most important task of modern and high-quality healthcare education. By analyzing clinical cases, undergraduate medical students are trained to make accurate diagnoses, to choose appropriate therapy based on laboratory results and on adequate diagnostic tests.

Aim

To examine the effect of clinical cases presentations on short-term memory as well as on the student’s and teachers’ evaluation of this method of teaching and learning in undergraduate medical studies.

Methods

A total of 107 students in term 4 and term 5 enrolled in Trinity Medical Sciences University in St. Vincent and the Grenadines participated in this cross-sectional study. At the end of the semester, the students and the faculty were asked to complete a survey to assess their perception of case presentations (10 items, 4-point Likert-type scale, strongly agree to strongly disagree). The results of pre- and post-presentation quizzes were evaluated using the Wilcoxon signed rank test for paired samples.

Results

Term 4 and term 5 students significantly improved their achievement after intervention (Wilcoxon test Z = − 11.282, p < 0.001, and Wilcoxon test Z = − 10.167, p < 0.001, respectively). The analysis of progress among low- and high-performance students in both terms showed a significant increase in performance. Overall, median students’ and teachers’ attitude scores were positive.

Conclusion

Clinical case presentation has a learning potential and facilitates positive interaction between instructors and students and supporting students to become reflective and competent physicians.

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Acknowledgments

We thank all the students and teachers for taking interest in our study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Trinity Medical Sciences University, Saint Vincent and The Grenadines campus, Alpharetta, GA, USA

    Dragan Jovanovic, Ranjan Solanki, Caleb Ackermann & Emily Satkovich

  2. Institute of Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia

    Tatjana Gazibara

Authors
  1. Dragan Jovanovic
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  2. Tatjana Gazibara
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  3. Ranjan Solanki
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  4. Caleb Ackermann
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  5. Emily Satkovich
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dragan Jovanovic.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Jovanovic, D., Gazibara, T., Solanki, R. et al. Perception of health-related case studies in the context of introduction to clinical medicine course: students’ and teachers’ perspective. Ir J Med Sci 189, 373–379 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11845-019-02036-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11845-019-02036-1

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