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I read with interest John Spencer's article on ‘Learning and Teaching
in the Clinical Environment ‘[BMJ 2003; 326 : 591 - 594]. There are many
useful tips here and I certainly, personally, use some of the tested
methods such as allowing the students to be active participants in clinic
settings or ward rounds rather than as passive observers. I would also
like to emphasise the unease that I personally feel when teaching medical
students by the patient's bedside and make it a point (as often as
possible and circumstances allowing) to use a side room / cubicle for this
purpose. I have found that this is more conducive to interviewing
patients and learning by the process, acceptable both to the patients,
students and ward staff . Such privacy obviates disruption to other
patients or visitors and also less intrusive. Additionally, I would like
to highlight the value of 'patient partners' in the teaching of students
as well as junior doctors and general practitioners which Spencer's
article omitted to mention; this is a well established facility, at least
within rheumatology.
In this letter I would also like to describe a teaching aid that I
have developed for use in clinic settings as well as on the wards. In
the past I had to often write, draw or look for [often in vain]
radiographs or other images of conditions under discussion to show to the
students. This had been a frustrating experience but with the development
of the teaching aids for clinics and wards, as described here, I am
finding it a much more rewarding experience personally . I believe the
students are also more satisfied.
My teaching aid consists of bound laminated sheets of information
pertaining to teaching in clinics such as diagnostic classification,
prevalence, points of interest in the history taking, typical clinical as
well as radiographic images of different conditions and principal
management options. This incorporates typical case scenarios with
laboratory results and typical images (often unavailable at clinics) for a
convenient method of discussing with the students at the time of their
clinic attendance.
This bound volume is used as ‘ a flip chart ‘ type book (as shown in
the photograph) to facilitate going from one section to another or from
one topic to another. The beauty of this is that it does not take time to
'boot up' ( I suffered many anxious moments in the past when I attempted
to use lap-tops in clinics for this purpose before I came up with this
aid!) ,it is also much more portable, durable, inexpensive and there is
less chance of it being stolen (I have lost one lap-top from within the
hospital grounds so far). The teaching aids that I have described here
has been produced from routine teaching slides e.g power-point and any
medical illustration department in any hospital can reproduce this with
lamination (this can also be done at home with inexpensive laminating
equipment). As I teach medical students at three different hospitals and
in both in-patients as well as in out-patient settings, I have now
produced several copies of the same teaching materials to be kept at the
clinics and wards to be made available during my sessions there rather
than having to carry on self.
I have found this a very convenient way of providing as much succinct
information as possible in clinic or ward environments and maximising the
learning potentials of the students .It does seem that the students find
this very rewarding too.
Teaching Aids in Clinics
I read with interest John Spencer's article on ‘Learning and Teaching
in the Clinical Environment ‘[BMJ 2003; 326 : 591 - 594]. There are many
useful tips here and I certainly, personally, use some of the tested
methods such as allowing the students to be active participants in clinic
settings or ward rounds rather than as passive observers. I would also
like to emphasise the unease that I personally feel when teaching medical
students by the patient's bedside and make it a point (as often as
possible and circumstances allowing) to use a side room / cubicle for this
purpose. I have found that this is more conducive to interviewing
patients and learning by the process, acceptable both to the patients,
students and ward staff . Such privacy obviates disruption to other
patients or visitors and also less intrusive. Additionally, I would like
to highlight the value of 'patient partners' in the teaching of students
as well as junior doctors and general practitioners which Spencer's
article omitted to mention; this is a well established facility, at least
within rheumatology.
In this letter I would also like to describe a teaching aid that I
have developed for use in clinic settings as well as on the wards. In
the past I had to often write, draw or look for [often in vain]
radiographs or other images of conditions under discussion to show to the
students. This had been a frustrating experience but with the development
of the teaching aids for clinics and wards, as described here, I am
finding it a much more rewarding experience personally . I believe the
students are also more satisfied.
My teaching aid consists of bound laminated sheets of information
pertaining to teaching in clinics such as diagnostic classification,
prevalence, points of interest in the history taking, typical clinical as
well as radiographic images of different conditions and principal
management options. This incorporates typical case scenarios with
laboratory results and typical images (often unavailable at clinics) for a
convenient method of discussing with the students at the time of their
clinic attendance.
This bound volume is used as ‘ a flip chart ‘ type book (as shown in
the photograph) to facilitate going from one section to another or from
one topic to another. The beauty of this is that it does not take time to
'boot up' ( I suffered many anxious moments in the past when I attempted
to use lap-tops in clinics for this purpose before I came up with this
aid!) ,it is also much more portable, durable, inexpensive and there is
less chance of it being stolen (I have lost one lap-top from within the
hospital grounds so far). The teaching aids that I have described here
has been produced from routine teaching slides e.g power-point and any
medical illustration department in any hospital can reproduce this with
lamination (this can also be done at home with inexpensive laminating
equipment). As I teach medical students at three different hospitals and
in both in-patients as well as in out-patient settings, I have now
produced several copies of the same teaching materials to be kept at the
clinics and wards to be made available during my sessions there rather
than having to carry on self.
I have found this a very convenient way of providing as much succinct
information as possible in clinic or ward environments and maximising the
learning potentials of the students .It does seem that the students find
this very rewarding too.
Yours sincerely
Badal Pal
Consultant Rheumatologist
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests