%0 Journal Article
%T Case-based exercises fail to improve medical students' information management skills: a controlled trial
%A Heidi S Chumley
%A Alison E Dobbie
%A John E Delzell
%J BMC Medical Education
%D 2006
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1472-6920-6-14
%X We compared two groups of clerkship students' information management skills using a standardized patient case. The intervention group participated in case-based discussions including exercises that required them to manage new information. The control group completed the same case discussions without information management exercises.After five weeks, there was no significant difference between the control and intervention groups' scores on the standardized patient case. However, third rotation students significantly outperformed first rotation students.Case-based exercises to teach information management failed to improve students' performance on a standardized patient case. Increased number of clinical rotations was associated with improved performance.When today's medical students graduate, they will conduct patient encounters using multiple technology-enhanced decision support systems. Current medical student training in ambulatory settings may not prepare students for this type of practice. Students often learn from physicians who generate few (0.01 to 0.8) clinical questions per patient encounter and infrequently use information technology to answer clinical questions at the point of care [1-3] Clinicians have previously reported that answering clinical questions is too time consuming to be practical during clinical sessions[4,5] However, that situation is changing. Improved information management tools, including personal digital assistants (PDAs) and Internet capable wireless computers, now allow rapid access to Web-based clinical information in ambulatory settings.Medical students must develop information management skills as a routine, integral part of the ambulatory patient encounter. Information management skills include: asking and refining clinical questions; accessing, retrieving, integrating and applying information into a clinical situation; and managing the doctor/patient/technology interface. Managing information at the point of care requires differ
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6920/6/14