Undergraduate Student Hanover College Evansville, Indiana, United States
Abstract Body : Point of care ultrasound has expanded within the medical field as technology has enabled more portable, handheld devices. The growing use of ultrasound (US) has led to its incorporation into medical school curricula. The integration of teaching with imaging modalities in medical curricula such as US, provides a mechanism for time efficient and clinically relevant anatomy education. Ultrasound affords the viewing of living anatomy, as opposed to static anatomical observation through cadavers. The development of medical students' skills in interpreting diagnostic imaging earlier is increasingly important. Despite a body of evidence of US in medical education, there is a need for studies that explicitly examine the impact of US incorporation on educational outcomes, for example, anatomical knowledge. We further seek to examine how the incorporation of US into an undergraduate human physiology course impacts student performance. The purpose of this study is to examine whether there is a difference in teaching undergraduate students physiology using either cadaveric prosections or the living anatomy approach of ultrasound echocardiography. The context of this study will occur during 3 consecutive weeks of the 14-week Human Physiology course taken by undergraduate students (n=53, ranging from sophomores to seniors). We will investigate the impact of teaching modality on students' understandings of cardiac physiology through a randomized controlled trial with a crossover design which arranges participants into two groups. Prior to the cardiac physiology unit, a pretest (T0) will be used to assess the participants initial knowledge base. Week 1, one group will participate in a cadaveric prosection learning experience whereas the 2nd group will participate in an echocardiography-based learning experience. A second test (T1) will be given to all participants to assess their cardiac physiology understandings. Week 2, both participant groups switch teaching modality experiences. Upon completion of the second teaching experience, a third test (T2) will be given to determine the influence of both teaching modalities on student conceptual understanding of cardiac physiology. We anticipate an increase in student post-test scores following participation in a teaching intervention (T1). We expect a greater increase in student post-test scores when participating in the US intervention (T1 & T2). The outcome of our study has implications for how to best facilitate teaching undergraduate students to learn cardiac physiology. Educational outcomes of undergraduate medical students with US have yielded mixed results, it needs to be investigated if US as a teaching approach yields benefits to the learning of cardiac physiology for undergraduate students.
