Introduction to early clinical exposure as learning tool in physiology

Abstract

Objectives: Early years of undergraduate medical education (especially the first 2 years) are critical for the academic success of medical students. In the traditional curricula of medical education, students learn theoretical knowledge without contact with the patient in a clinical context. Early clinical exposure (ECE) has been suggested to help medical fresh students overcome their stresses and motivate them to develop better insight and awareness to the medical profession. Materials and Methods: We devised a teaching-learning ECE intervention study module in endocrine physiology, which comprised traditional didactic lectures, supplemented with an ECE program in a hospital setting, a hospital visit to see patients. The study group was given the intervention of ECE, through the ECE designed module. The outcomes and effectiveness of this intervention were assessed by a multiple-choice pretest/post-test model of learning knowledge gain and effectiveness of the educational intervention by calculating learning matrices. Students feedback toward ECE was assessed by a 5 point Likert-scale responses and their views through a validated questionnaire. Results: Mean pre-test and post-test scores of students learning improved significantly from 9.6 ± 2.58 (48%) to 13.2 ± 2.53 (66%), (P = 0.043) in the study group. The learning gain (gi) for individual students was tabulated and average single student normalised gain Gi(avg) was calculated. For the study group, it was 29 ± 33% and control group 7 ± 14%. To assess the intervention effectiveness class average normalised gain G was found to be 34%, in the study group and 13% in the control group (P < 0.05). The study group students (96.4%) gave an overall rating of good/excellent to ECE on a five-point Likert scale. The mean score was (4.3 ± 1.4) showing that the overall rating of ECE was good to excellent. Conclusion: The pre-test/post-test model with a calculation of various measures of learning gain provides an objective and informative means to document learner performance and demonstrate the effectiveness of the educational intervention. The students’ satisfaction and their positive attitude toward ECE suggested that this interventional study improves the quality of basic science courses and adds substantial relevance to clinical application.