The use of an interactive computer-supported programme improved the pharmacology learning in the course of anaesthesia, revival techniques and medicine of pain for undergraduate medical students

Inmaculada Bellido1, Aurelio Gomez-Luque2,1. 1D. Pharmacology and Clinical Therapeutics. School of Medicine, Malaga, Spain, 2S. Anaesthesia. Virgen de la Victoria Universitary Hospital, Malaga, Spain.

Background: Medical students are forced to memorise a multitude of facts. However, we have to deemphasise the facts memorization in favour of independent rationalized learning1. It is necessary to prepare the teaching material in such a form and contents that it should be understandable and acceptable by the students and, at the same time, it must awaken their abilities to think and to develop skills that will enable them to facilitate the acquisition of fundamental knowledge, clinical skills and methods for the critical appraisal and effective use of research literature throughout their professional lives. Use of e-learning, high-fidelity simulators, and other techniques, helps us to teach and improve our student’s learning2.

Aim: To quantify the efficacy of a computer-supported programme (ARMPp) added to a face to face teaching of the Pharmacological knowledge included in the Anaesthesia, Revival Techniques and Medicine of Pain course for undergraduate medical students.

Methods: Students of the ARMP course of 2007-08 (n = 167) taught by the classical face to face (FtF) methodology were compared with student from 2008-09 (n = 174) taught using the ARMPp programme as complement to face to face teaching (ARMPpF). Both groups were taught by the same teachers. ARMPp is an interactive computer-supported programme develops for our group as a helper class’s material in ARMP teaching. Microsoft Windows XP, Word, Power Point, Microsoft Front Page, Hot Potatoes, free material of specialized medical webs, UMA’s Moodle platform as virtual support, and Explorer and Mozilla software as internet communication support were used to design ARMPp. Texts and slides presentation with iterative buttons linked to hyper-text to questions, references, figures, films, iterative auto-evaluations, clinical cases-lessons related and high fidelity simulators were included. The student knowledge’s (quality and quantity) evaluation and an anonymous satisfaction questionnaire (which was done after the course and the evaluation ended) were analyzed. Statistical analysis was done by unpaired-group’ student t test.

Results: 174 (51% of n = 341) students were initially trained in ARMPp handling during 2 h. They spent a mean of 45±6.7 h using the ARMPp during the course development (3.4±0.5 h/week/x13 weeks). We founded some differences between the two groups (FtF vs. ARMPpF) (p<0.05): time of study 5.8±1.5 h/week vs. 4.2±0.7 h/week; percentage of correct resolved clinical cases 71%-89%; percentage of approved student 64.8% (51.6% with A or B) vs. 85.2% (64.1% with A or B); students which prepared themselves for the honours qualification special exam 13 vs. 29; percentage which consider this teaching-learning system better than the classic methodology 69% vs. 95%.

Conclusion: The use of the helper class material ARMPp computer-supported programme improved the pharmacology learning and was more pleasant for the course of anaesthesia, revival techniques and medicine of pain undergraduate medical student.

1Cook DA. The failure of e-learning research to inform educational practice, and what we can do about it. Med Teach. 2009; 31: 158.
2Cook DA, Dupras DM. A Practical Guide to Developing Effective Web-Based Learning. J Gen Intern Med. 2004; 19: 698.