Medical informatics in postgraduate training: a way to improve office-based practitioner information management

Enhancing entrepreneurship and professionalism in medical informatics instruction: a collaborative training model

This report describes an innovative training program designed to foster entrepreneurship and professionalism in students interested in the field of medical informatics. The course was developed through a private-public interinstitutional collaboration involving four academic institutions, one private firm specializing in health care information management systems, and a philanthropic organization. The program challenged students to serve in multiple roles on multidisciplinary teams and develop an innovative hand-held solution for drug information retrieval. Although the course was technically and behaviorally rigorous and required extensive hands-on experience in a nontraditional learning environment, both students and faculty responded positively.

AI/LEARN/Rheumatology. A comparative study of computer-assisted instruction for rheumatology

OBJECTIVE

To assess the effectiveness of AI/LEARN/Rheumatology, a computer-controlled interactive videodisc system for teaching.

METHODS

We assessed improvement in knowledge about rheumatic diseases, using a pretest and posttest in a control year and a treatment year. The subjects were medical students and postgraduate trainees taking the rheumatology elective. The control year used traditional lectures and the standard rheumatology curriculum. The treatment year used AI/LEARN/Rheumatology in place of lectures on rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, and osteoarthritis.

RESULTS

The trainees showed significant improvement in knowledge in both the control year and the treatment year (P < 0.0001 for both). The average time spent using AI/LEARN/Rheumatology was similar to the time spent in lectures (3 hours). The number of patient consultations in which trainees participated was lower in the treatment year than in the control year; however, the adjusted posttest scores using the pretest as a covariate tended to be higher in the treatment year (P = 0.10). Analysis of covariance of the adjusted posttest scores for the treatment year only showed that the trainees who spent more time using AI/LEARN/Rheumatology learned more (r = 0.57). Trainees felt that AI/LEARN/Rheumatology was the most helpful educational experience of the elective.

CONCLUSION

AI/LEARN/Rheumatology is an effective means of teaching about the rheumatic diseases. It has many advantages: availability for independent study, effective use of trainee's time, and liberation of faculty time from lectures. Trainees enjoyed using AI/LEARN/Rheumatology.