Case Study vs Didactic Learning - an opinion

[StartingoverVet]

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SMH.

ok. Thinking this way is not helping me study... Thanks for all your thoughts Sumstorm.... So happy you came back....Good luck on the NAVLE and next year.

 

[Packen]

I think it also depends on the focus of the instructors; our anatomy instructors prided themselves on students learning 'more in anatomy than any other class'...our immunology professors felt the same way. My goal is to learn functional knowledge, not to learn the most factoids/credit hour. I memorized nerve blocks for anatomy that we have since had clinicians say they would never use. To me, it doen't matter if those nerve blocks were taught; if I never use them I will never remember them, but at some point I had to reduce time learning other, more relevant blocks, to try to learn the less useful ones. I feel the same way about drugs that are no longer manufactured. Until a pharm company manufactures those drugs again (and I don't mean production disruption issues) it is useless for me to learn them because there is a really good chance I will not encounter them again. I personally think far too many instructors are focused on teaching every detail and differentiating students by memorized minutiae to teach medicine effectively. Also, when we have professors that are good at focusing information, other profs will literally poke fun at how easy their exams are and even say things like they have to compensate for it ( because, apparently, it would be a real shame for everyone in the clss to really know the necessary material and do equally well on an exam.) As I study for the NAVLE, I can really tell which professors were effective and efficient because even odd ball questions on piglets vomiting trigger enough knowledge to figure out the best answer (and that prof was right; we only need to know specific pathogenicities for a few specific diseases.)

First - you had to memorize nerve blocks in anatomy? Ugh, what a waste of time!!

I agree with what you are saying as far as throwing too many many details that are really useless for being good vets. But I don't necessarily think it is a bad thing to use those details to help differentiate grades as long as knowing the basic, necessary concepts gets you a pass. I think it is us as students that tend to put pressure on ourselves to get a specific grade. Looking back on my previous post, maybe it isn't that our lecturers only taught the big picture, maybe it is that I only took the big picture away from lecture. Here, knowing the big, relevant items will get you a pass. If you don't understand the basic concepts, you will not pass.

But I consider passing the same as doing well - and it is the mentality (maybe a UK thing?) that they try to instill in us on day one. The goal is to graduate and be able to walk into a practice the next day and be a competent, GP vet. If you achieve passing grades, then they are confident you can do this, so if I achieve passing grades, I am also confident I can do this.

Where I see a problem, is if the details are the main area of testing - because that doesn't mean a student knows the correct info to be a good vet, it just means they can regurgitate undigested word casserole.

Ok, slightly off topic. This is what happens when I should be studying. Sorry.

 

[nyanko]

I agree with what you are saying as far as throwing too many many details that are really useless for being good vets. But I don't necessarily think it is a bad thing to use those details to help differentiate grades as long as knowing the basic, necessary concepts gets you a pass.

Well but here's the thing. Those details are completely unimportant and soon forgotten. So even if you want to differentiate people based on pre-clinical grades (which is pretty dumb IMO), why use such a worthless metric? Why not ask questions that further challenge the understanding of concepts and clinical reasoning beyond what might be necessary to pass? If you want to rank people that's really what you should be ranking people on.

 

[sunshinevet]

Well but here's the thing. Those details are completely unimportant and soon forgotten. So even if you want to differentiate people based on pre-clinical grades (which is pretty dumb IMO), why use such a worthless metric? Why not ask questions that further challenge the understanding of concepts and clinical reasoning beyond what might be necessary to pass? If you want to rank people that's really what you should be ranking people on.

Totally agree with this. I am that student who cannot remember which views of a hock im meant to take (I can totally look that shiz up...) but can write an indepth answer on the pathophys and treatment of DIC, renal failure, DKA... you name it. My grades do not reflect my knowledge - and it shows when the people who have graded my test are pleasantly surprised by how intelligent and knowledgeable I am when they talk to me!!! Surely that shows they've written an irrelevant test?!

I've been thinking about this topic the last few days, and I've finally decided to say something. We are taught mainly through lecture based didactic learning. It works for me - I think. However, I find it really hard for me to tell whether or not it actually does.

See, unlike most people in vet school in the US, due to our (usually) lower contact hours I've been working in GP clinics and EMCC clinics the whole time I've been at uni(as in vet school, not undergrad), usually for 20-30hrs/week. (I may or may not have taken on a slightly cushingoid appearance due to stress in the last 6 months... 😛) I think this has allowed me to PBL in my own time, at my own pace. Sure, I don't work with horses - i also did very poorly in equine medicine and surgery. I rocked small animal, though. So the more I think about it, the more I think I gain so much reinforcement through the cases I see at work, and they contribute so significantly to my learning. It makes me wonder what its like for the students in my class who don't have that exposure - I've never struggled to see different clinical presentations etc of different diseases however, maybe they would because they have only recieved things in lectures? I just don't know.

I do think that having case based learning once a week would probably help bring things together - I just don't see it as particularly viable in classes such as anatomy and immunology (atleast, not in the form it was taught to us). I would love us to have systems based learning (I think, lol), or atleast more coordination between units, as all of ours function quite independantly so occasionally professors expect us to have learned something in another class that we havent yet... or wont at all. (They had to tack on an emergency lecture this year, a year after we did the unit, as the medicine lecturer told us we should have covered acute renal failure in EMCC... which we hadnt...makes me wonder what other holes we have...)

 

[LetItSnow]

We are taught mainly through lecture based didactic learning. It works for me - I think. However, I find it really hard for me to tell whether or not it actually does.

[...] So the more I think about it, the more I think I gain so much reinforcement through the cases I see at work, and they contribute so significantly to my learning. It makes me wonder what its like for the students in my class who don't have that exposure - I've never struggled to see different clinical presentations etc of different diseases however, maybe they would because they have only recieved things in lectures? I just don't know.

It sounds to me like the didactic doesn't work so much - because you seem to be saying that if you didn't have the case-based material you wouldn't feel so confident with the material?

UMN is trialing a new course next semester that I'm pretty excited about: "Clinical Correlations is a case-based review of common problems in veterinary medicine in all species. Students from the first three years of the veterinary curriculum work in groups to review relevant basic science and apply it clinically, as preparation for their clinical year of training and board review. Three variations of the course are offered such that a given student enrolled for all three years will cover all 15 major problems reviewed."

They're taking 20 students from each of the first three years because they recognize that each year brings a certain body of 'fresh' knowledge to the table. (I believe the plan is to expand the course to make it more widely available if it plays out well and if they can find instructors to teach it.)

To me it sounds like an awesome way to learn from a) cases, and b) other students. It also sounds like a fairly enjoyable way to approach the material and a way to ramp up your clinical confidence earlier on in vet school.

 

[myotherself]

Disclaimer: I'm not in vet school yet, but am in graduate classes at my university. But here's my opinion.

I've found the following:

1. I need basic knowledge to understand a system/the function of the system before I can apply it to a situation, which requires, I think, combination of lecture/hands on lab experience (not yet case studies though). It boggles my mind to think 5 years ago I didn't know what a nephron was, or the layers of the intestine, or something similar that now feels like I've never not known it, but had I been given a case study at that time, I'd have no idea how to even approach it.

2. Once I do know enough basic information, I learn through applying in case studies. Two of my physiology courses currently have lectures with case study take home exams, and I find that everything makes so much more sense and interrelates the knowledge I've learned to actual application. For instance, I didn't remember what I studied for in my nutrition courses after the exams were over, but I do remember specific nutrient deficiencies that the case studies presented to me in the physio courses involved. It takes those applications to make me remember something completely, and in my choice for vet schools to apply to, that was a huge portion of why I would choose a school.


I personally cannot just have lectures and expect myself to know how to apply that knowledge in the field. I love case studies/PBL, so long as I've had an introductory background to the topic. But a straight rote memorization exam wouldn't tell me if I could ever perform well with a patient, because I'd have no idea if I could combine my knowledge to an analysis/solution in that case without practicing first.