Education, Health, Medicine

Has the Influence of Harry Potter Spread to Medical Education?

As the semester comes to a close, it’s not unusual to see clusters of seniors chatting eagerly about how they’re going to spend their last summer before starting medical school. According to a study done in 2006 by the Mayo clinic, students that enter medical school with mental health profiles similar to their college peers. Although they spend their next few years training and studying on how to improve the health of others, they tend to disregard their own in the process. Reports show decreased attention to getting adequate sleep, meals, recreation and show higher rates of mental distress as student’s progress through medical school. Sadly, the same study has also shown that depressed students are less likely to reach out for help because of the stigma surrounding mental illness.

With the worrisome consequences of depression in medical students including possible burnout and increased rate of contemplated suicide, it is important to contemplate how a change in culture within the medical school environment can be brought about to tackle some of the stigma surrounding mental illness.

So, what can we do to bring about this change?

Lisolette Dyrbe, M.D., and the lead author of the Mayo study, has encouraged a lot of conversation about the issue.

“It’s certainly important for the student to learn the right coping strategies, time management skills, and stress reduction techniques. All of that is important, but it is not the entire answer. We also have to look at school-level initiatives. There needs to be organizational change.”

So, how are institutions responding?

Including pass/fail options for courses, reducing volume of course material, and giving students more opportunities to work and teach outside the hospital are just some of the ways that universities are working to lessens the stressful burden on patients. Many programs also provide mandatory resilience and mindfulness courses that teach coping mechanisms and stress management techniques. In addition, other universities have incorporated confidential web sites and hot lines for counseling, hired mental health experts, and have developed elective courses in health and wellness.

But, is this really helping?

Recent studies have examined these changes and have identified an important problem: students aren’t participating. Despite the good intentions of the universities and resources provided to the students, only a few seem to be taking advantage of these opportunities and these, more than likely, aren’t the ones that are in real need of care.

One program, though, has been able to show some success.

The Student Wellness Program at Vanderbilt medical school, which provides a variety of health and wellness activities, has been seen to improve the health of students by effectively partnering and empowering the medical students themselves into organizing and promoting their own health and interests. The program has allowed the students to be divided into four “colleges,” similar to the Hogwarts houses in Harry Potter, that allow the students to connect and organize activities that provide an outlet outside of the classroom. Dr. Scott Rodgers, the associate dean of medical student affairs describes the aim of the program perfectly and outlines the importance of health and happiness for these students.

“It’s a challenge for anyone to stay healthy and happy. But when doctors are able to stay healthy and happy, that means patients get physicians who are more compassionate and selfless. They end up with doctors who really have the energy to invest time in them.”

As undergraduate students pursuing careers in medicine, this discussion brings up some interesting conversations. What can we do to better prepare ourselves for medical school going forward? Are there ways that we can contribute to not only helping ourselves and our peers reduce stigma surrounding mental illness but also to improve health within the medical community?

sources: https://www.aamc.org/newsroom/reporter/jan2013/325922/stress.html; http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/a-medical-school-more-like-hogwarts/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

Tagged health, medical education

Apr 24 2014

Design, Education, Technology

Resurrecting PowerPoint in Medical Education

I recently visited one of my teachers from high school and was greatly amused to see her teaching class from an archaic overhead projector. I did not understand why, in a world with so much innovative technology, she had opted to use such outdated equipment. The experience caused me to ponder the extent to which technology has become integrated in our culture, and how this has affected the increasing role of multimedia software in education.

pvsp

Tools like PowerPoint, podcasts, video tutorials, etc., offer new and innovative teaching methods and possibilities. As a result, these technologies are used so frequently that it has become almost more unusual for a professor NOT to use some sort of multimedia tool in conjunction with their lecture. PowerPoint, especially, has become a popular multimedia resource for professors because of its ease of access and ability to streamline information into bullet-pointed lists.

While the software offers a variety of options for presenting and configuring information in many different ways, most professors still opt for the classic bullet-point format. We have all had that professor who lectures quickly, flipping through plain slides overloaded with text, resulting in a mad rush to record the information. Ultimately, this leads to confusion and the propagating of washed-out expressions and bored students. Sadly this detrimental practice is so common that researchers have named the phenomenon, “death by PowerPoint.”

badpowerpointnews1

If this is the case, then how is the use of PowerPoint as an educational tool any better than my teacher’s antiquated, boring overhead projector?

Medical education provides an extremely high stress environment where students must learn enormous amounts of information in a limited amount of time. In such a high-stake atmosphere, improvements in the effectiveness of educational tools like PowerPoint could have a massive effect on the education of our country’s upcoming physicians.

So, are there ways to improve the use of PowerPoint and other multimedia tools to make them better resources for imparting information to students?

Example of Adapted Powerpoint Slide

Research done by Richard E. Mayer has directly addressed many of these questions. Mayer has established a number of theories and principles regarding design and implementation strategies of multimedia educational materials through his work with evidence-based education materials. Both his and supporting research has shown that incorporation of Mayer’s multimedia design strategies involving college-level students showed increases in short-term retention of information. In addition, current research has shown that incorporation multimedia (similar to Mayer’s design) led to an increase in the short-term retention of information by medical students.

Preliminary evidence has shown that PowerPoint and its use can be redeemed, but still leaves many questions unanswered:

(1) Is there a possibility of improving multimedia presentation to improve long-term information retention?

(2) Do the use of multimedia tools improve student’s ability to incorporate information into a clinical setting?

Sources:

Mayer, R. Multimedia Learning, 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2009.

Tagged medical education

Apr 05 2013

Design, Education, Health, Medicine, Technology

Countdown to “Millennial Medicine: Knowledge Design for an Age of Digital Disruption” #MMed13

Only three weeks left before the inaugural symposium of the Medical Futures Lab on April 26 in Houston.

The design of “Millennial Medicine” has the Lab’s multidisciplinary-critical-thinking-through-creative-design handprints all over it. We’re bringing together thought leaders from inside and outside of medical education to reimagine the future of medicine and the tools we need to get there. Our speakers are covering a thrilling array of topics, including:

“Digitizing Human Beings” (Eric Topol)

“Can Medical Education Become a Learning Ecosystem?” (Marc Triola)

“The Future of Continuing Medical Education: Can We Keep Up with Exponential Growth in Medical Knowledge?” (Yuri Millo)

“Ten Lessons About Technoculture Innovation for Medicine” (Anne Balsamo)

And that’s all before lunch. Schedule here, and watch this space for the equally fabulous after-lunch lineup.

By drawing input from different disciplines we will leverage our collective capabilities to identify core problems, create critical dialog, fashion innovative solutions, and cultivate new patterns of thinking while fostering a uniquely creative medical culture. This innovative symposium will bring the voices of the next generation of medical leaders into the dialog about medicine’s future by asking, “how should medicine look in 2050?” Join the conversation!

Register here.

Tagged communication, future, health, medical education, medicine

Medical Futures Lab

Tag Archives: medical education