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Assessing the impact of Medical Microbiology classes using active strategies on short- and long-term retention on medical students: an innovative study.

ABSTRACT: One of teachers' concerns, with students in general and medical students in particular, is to ensure as much as possible that information goes from students' short-term memories to their long-term memories. The present study focuses on knowledge retention in Medical Microbiology and assesses the effectiveness of some strategies implemented for short- and long-term retention. A pre- and post-test was used to assess student's learning. This study involved students of Porto University (test group). Test group participants were all attending the third year of the Medicine Degree Program. The results of post-test 1 were considered very positive and support the importance of these applied active activities and/or methodologies in Medical Microbiology for short-term retention. However, the results obtained in post-test 2 showed that knowledge retention after 9 months, despite substantial, decreases.

SUBMITTER: Azevedo MM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6863303 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Assessing the impact of Medical Microbiology classes using active strategies on short- and long-term retention on medical students: an innovative study.

Azevedo Maria-Manuel MM Costa-de-Oliveira Sofia S Teixeira-Santos Rita R Silva Ana P AP Miranda Isabel M IM Lisboa Carmen C Pina-Vaz Cidália C Rodrigues Acácio G AG

Brazilian journal of microbiology : [publication of the Brazilian Society for Microbiology] 20181130 1

One of teachers' concerns, with students in general and medical students in particular, is to ensure as much as possible that information goes from students' short-term memories to their long-term memories. The present study focuses on knowledge retention in Medical Microbiology and assesses the effectiveness of some strategies implemented for short- and long-term retention. A pre- and post-test was used to assess student's learning. This study involved students of Porto University (test group). ...[more]

PMID: 30637632

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Project description:ProblemThe World Health Organization calls on all with quality medical information to share it with the public and combat health misinformation; however, U.S. medical schools do not currently teach students effective communication with lay audiences about health. Most physicians have inadequate training in mass communication strategies.ApproachIn August 2018, a novel 90-minute class at the University of Minnesota Medical School introduced fourth-year medical students to basic skills for communicating with lay audiences through mass media. Instructors were physicians with experience interacting with the general public via radio, op-ed articles, social media, print media, television, and community and legislative advocacy. After a 20-minute lecture and sharing of instructors' personal experiences, students completed two 30-minute small-group activities. They identified communications objectives and talking points for a health topic, drafting these as Tweets or an op-ed article outline, then presented talking points in a mock press conference with their peers, practicing skills just learned. Pre- and postsurveys documented students' previous engagement and comfort with future engagement with mass media messaging.OutcomesOver 1 week, 142 students participated in 6 separate classes, and 127 completed both pre- and postsurveys. Before the course, only 6% (7/127) of students had comfortably engaged with social media and 14% (18/127) had engaged with traditional media in their professional roles. After the course, students self-reported an increase in their comfort, perceived ability, and likelihood of using specific communications skills to advocate for their patients (all P < .001).Next stepsThe course will be expanded into a 5-session thread for third- and fourth-year medical students spread over 2 years. This thread will include meeting physicians who engage with lay audiences, identifying best practices for mass health communication, identifying bias and misinformation, "dos and don'ts" of social media, and communication skills for legislative advocacy.

Project description:BackgroundThe rise of the internet and social media has boosted online crowdfunding as a novel strategy to raise funds for kick-starting projects, but it is rarely used in science.ObjectiveWe report on an online crowdfunding campaign launched in the context of the neuroscience project HORAO. The aim of HORAO was to develop a noninvasive real-time method to visualize neuronal fiber tracts during brain surgery in order to better delineate tumors and to identify crucial cerebral landmarks. The revenue from the crowdfunding campaign was to be used to sponsor a crowdsourcing campaign for the HORAO project.MethodsWe ran a 7-week reward-based crowdfunding campaign on a national crowdfunding platform, offering optional material and experiential rewards in return for a contribution toward raising our target of Swiss francs (CHF) 50,000 in financial support (roughly equivalent to US $50,000 at the time of the campaign). We used various owned media (websites and social media), as well as earned media (press releases and news articles) to raise awareness about our project.ResultsThe production of an explanatory video took 60 hours, and 31 posts were published on social media (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter). The campaign raised a total of CHF 69,109. Approximately half of all donations came from donors who forwent a reward (CHF 28,786, 48.74%); the other half came from donors who chose experiential and material rewards in similar proportions (CHF 14,958, 25.33% and CHF 15,315.69, 25.93%, respectively). Of those with an identifiable relationship to the crowdfunding team, patients and their relatives contributed the largest sum (CHF 17,820, 30.17%), followed by friends and family (CHF 9288, 15.73%) and work colleagues (CHF 6028, 10.21%), while 43.89% of funds came from donors who were either anonymous or had an unknown relationship to the crowdfunding team. Patients and their relatives made the largest donations, with a median value of CHF 200 (IQR 90).ConclusionsCrowdfunding proved to be a successful strategy to fund a neuroscience project and to raise awareness of a specific clinical problem. Focusing on potential donors with a personal interest in the issue, such as patients and their relatives in our project, is likely to increase funding success. Compared with traditional grant applications, new skills are needed to explain medical challenges to the crowd through video messages and social media.

Dataset Information

Assessing the impact of Medical Microbiology classes using active strategies on short- and long-term retention on medical students: an innovative study.

Publications

Assessing the impact of Medical Microbiology classes using active strategies on short- and long-term retention on medical students: an innovative study.

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