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9th Annual Meeting 
of the 
International Association of Medical Science Educators 

July 14-19, 2005
 

Abstract Category: Curriculum

Poster ID: C17

How to combine clinical and basic science in one course with a HETEROGENEOUS student population – the SUPER CASE method

Birgitta Björck,Coordinator., Loghman Henareh, M.D. and Hans Gyllenhammar, M.D., Ph.D. Karolinska Institutet, Institution for Medicine, Huddinge. S-14186 Stockholm, SWEDEN

We faced the problem to give a two week elective course covering the basic mechanisms for inflammation combined with their clinical correlate for students in the 3´d, 7^th and 11^th semester of their medical education. Thus, students with no clinical experience and students with several years of clinical training were part of the course. We have organized an elective course in clinical inflammation for several years using a conventional curriculum combining lectures with seminars and clinical rotations. However, to integrate basic science with clinical knowledge in such a heterogeneous group of students we expected for the present course the conventional curriculum would not work.

The solution we selected was to formulate a master case, a “super” case, strategy. The first day of the course, after a brief introductory lecture, the students spent one day in different departments of the clinic. This was not only rheumatology but also e.g. cardiology or hematology departments. Their assignment was to select one current patient whose clinical history and present hospital care was to form the basis for a two week case. They were to follow the patient’s treatment and recovery and extract all that was of importance for inflammation from the case. They were further instructed to use the library and Pub-Med resources to find evidence for their conclusions in original publications, meta-analysis or review articles. In addition to the case a small series of highly selected lectures was offered which the students attended at their own discretion.

Thirteen students attended the course. They represented semester 3 and 11 of the Karolinska curriculum. All students selected a patient for the super case but some students choose to cooperate and thus selected a common patient. Thus, 8 super cases were selected. The students had access to an instructor at any time personally, by e-mail or phone during the course. Most students made light use of this opportunity. At the end of the course all students made individual presentations in case seminars where they acted as case-teachers for the other students in the course.

The teachers found that all students made good or excellent presentations and most showed deep learning during the case seminars adding depth and background to the discussions. This was remarkably independent of their seniority. The students evaluated the course as very interesting and activating and also remarked that they thought this a very effective way of learning.

We plan to develop the super case strategy further in our integrative courses combining basic science and clinical education.

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