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2006 Annual Report:
Medical Education Research and Development
Innovations in Medical Education
Medical students at the University of Colorado Denver are using an innovative video-based
curriculum developed by Associate Professors Carol Kamin,
EdD, and Robin Deterding, MD, to learn how to diagnose
diseases in pediatric patients. Called Project L.I.V.E. (Learning
through Interactive Video Education), the curriculum uses
video case reenactments and distance-learning technology to
help students gain experience with important diagnoses they
might not otherwise encounter during a traditional pediatric
clinical rotation.
“It’s not so unusual now, but we were the first medical
school to create cases using video,” says Kamin. “Students
work through cases with their peers and a faculty mentor.
They get a chance to think like a doctor in a safe environment
so that they can begin learning the process of noticing symptoms
and deciding what they think is going on.”
Project L.I.V.E. is an example of problem-based learning, a
teaching strategy that poses contextualized, real-world problems
to students while providing support for them as they build
new knowledge. Students work in small groups, meeting in
person or from remote locations asynchronously over the
Internet—under the guidance of a faculty facilitator—to discuss
the video-based cases they have studied. Benefits
of the strategy include increased student engagement,
the ability for students to place learning
in a real-world context, and the chance for
students to collaborate and learn from each
other and their faculty facilitator as they reason
through the cases.
“By using these cases, the students are the ones who work
to make the diagnoses,” says Deterding. “In the end, the goal
is that they feel like they have really cared for a patient.”
Drs. Kamin and Deterding have received close to a million
dollars in federal funding for this project. Project L.I.V.E. has
grown to a consortium of seven medical schools from across
the country. These schools have integrated L.I.V.E. cases into
their curricula and developed their own cases using the CU
authoring program. All cases are shared with the larger group.
Research studies published on Project L.I.V.E. report
increased student motivation, critical thinking and clinical
recognition skills with the use of video cases. In addition, a
study completed by one of the consortium partners found
that video cases improved attitudes towards working with obese adolescents.
Besides investigating student learning and the
elements that contribute to that learning, a multi-site study
was also done on the dissemination of this initiative contributing
to the literature on what is needed to have schools
adopt another school’s innovation.
According to Drs. Kamin and Deterding, Project L.I.V.E.’s
success is a reflection of their ability to recognize the needs
of learners and devise an instructional strategy
to meet them. Lessons learned from this project
are influencing the direction of these investigators
in new research and development.
For example, the Colorado Department of
Public Health and Environment’s Cancer,
Cardiovascular Disease, and Pulmonary
Disease Grant Program has funded a proposal to improve
the treatment of asthma by partnering with The Children’s
Hospital Asthma Team to develop video simulations and other
interventions for training community providers. “Having
the opportunity to translate our educational work into better
asthma care and to document improvement is very exciting
for me as a pediatric pulmonologist,” says Deterding.
“Innovative teaching is about having the same attitude
that you might have about your research,” says Kamin.
“You want to understand how what you do helps people
learn. You try experiments and you evaluate them to see
what is most effective.”
For more information, please visit the following:
First published in University of Colorado Faculty at Work, Spring 2006. Text and
photo courtesy of UCB Publications and Creative Services.
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