Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Conventional methods of one-way teaching may not involve the integration of clinical skills and may become more inefficient and passive [1]. During the COVID-19 pandemic, limited patient interaction and shift to online lectures greatly reduced the clinical exposure and opportunity of developing interpersonal skills for junior medical students. In this study, we hosted online webinars with case-based teaching for medical students so that they can amalgamate clinical skills with patient-based care and systems-based practice.

Methods: Six free webinars were hosted at one-month intervals covering various endocrine topics for first and second-year medical students of Punjab, India. Each webinar started with three endocrine case vignettes containing the patient’s chief complaints, history of present illness, and their clinical course. These anonymised clinical scenarios were derived from real-life patient transcripts. It was followed by a lecture explaining the pathophysiology of that system along with a clinical discussion. Then, students were divided into multiple breakout rooms where the instructors discussed the case vignettes and answered any further queries. Pre-webinar and post-webinar assessment were done using multiple-choice questions which were clinically oriented. Follow-up assessment was also done one month after each webinar to estimate the retention of knowledge by students. Students’ attitudes regarding the usage of webinars and case-oriented teaching as compared to conventional training were ascertained using Likert scale (1=low, 5=high) and open-ended questions. Analysis was done using SPSS Statistics v26.0.

Results: 72 students filled all the surveys and were included in the analysis. Significantly higher (P<0.001) improvement in student’s post-session scores after attending each webinar and 1-month follow-up assessment were observed compared to pre-test scores. No significant differences were seen in post-webinar results and one-month follow-up results which is indicative of good retention of knowledge. The majority of the students (67, 93.1%) either strongly preferred or preferred case-based learning model compared to conventional one-way teaching. In thematic analysis, the key strengths of our model were simulating clinical scenarios and providing engaging and focused training with an emphasis on doubt-solving.

Conclusions: Webinars with a case-based learning approach provide an important utility in simulating endocrinological clinical scenarios and may be used as an adjunct/alternative when compared to the traditional one-way teaching methods.

Reference

[1] Nandi, P.L., et al. Undergraduate medical education: comparison of problem-based learning and conventional teaching. Hong Kong Medical Journal, 6(3), pp.301–306.