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Integrating occupational health into the medicine clerkship using problem-based learning.

Integrating occupational health into the medicine clerkship using problem-based learning.

Authors :
Sokas RK
Diserens D
Johnston MA
Source :
Journal of general internal medicine [J Gen Intern Med] 1991 Sep-Oct; Vol. 6 (5), pp. 450-4.
Publication Year :
1991

Abstract

Objective: To improve medical students' ability and willingness to obtain occupational histories from their patients.<br />Participants: General medicine faculty and internal medicine teaching residents, who participated as instructors, and medical students during their required internal medicine clerkships.<br />Setting: The primary teaching hospitals of two medical schools.<br />Design: During alternate months, students participated in problem-based sessions that included occupational health objectives (intervention) or attended the standard small-group didactic sessions (control). Process evaluations were collected from students and faculty in the intervention group following each session. Outcome evaluation was performed using chart audit and multiple-choice testing to compare the intervention and control groups.<br />Intervention: Intervention students participated in at least one problem-based session incorporating occupational aspects of disease into clinical internal medicine. Instructors received information packets and materials but had no other expertise in occupational medicine.<br />Measurements and Main Results: The great majority of ratings on the process evaluations showed that the students were "moderately" to "extremely" interested in the session attended. No student rated any session to be a "waste of time," and over 90% of students would recommend the session being evaluated to a friend. Chart audit showed that students in the intervention group recorded slightly more occupational information than did those in the control group (an average of 2.97 vs. 2.37 pieces of information, p = 0.06). When the most commonly documented data (employment status and job title) were ignored, the difference between group means (1.1 vs. 0.91) was significant (p = 0.03), suggesting that intervention students were more likely to probe further into a patient's occupational history. Both groups of students collected less occupational information from women than from men (t = 3.22, p = 0.0035). Multiple-choice tests revealed no difference between the two groups in overall medical knowledge or occupational medicine knowledge.<br />Conclusions: Problem-based learning with specific occupational content is well accepted by students and modestly improves their occupational history taking.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
0884-8734
Volume :
6
Issue :
5
Database :
MEDLINE
Journal :
Journal of general internal medicine
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
1744762
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02598170