Incubator poster presentations

Document Type

Article

Department

Paediatrics and Child Health (East Africa)

Abstract

Objective: Antibiotics are a class of medication which can be challenging for medical students to learn, as microbiology and pharmacology must be learned in addition to the diagnostic component of infectious disease content. A learning need was identified by pre-clerkship medical students for supplemental learning material on antibiotics to complement didactic lectures in the pre-clerkship curriculum.

Methods: A module covering common antibiotic classes was created to assist pre-clerkship medical student learning. Objectives were developed to guide student learning. They include recalling spectrum of activity, mechanism of action, and adverse reactions of antibiotic classes covered, as well as selecting treatment on a case-by-case basis, based on patientspecific factors. The module was designed to optimize recall of information through the use of mnemonics, questions, cases and a historical description of antibiotic design as it pertains to spectrum of activity for β-lactam antibiotics. A post-module evaluation was conducted to determine the opinion of twentyfive pre-clerkship medical students. Eight questions used a 1–5 Likert scale and two questions assessed student opinion on module strengths and areas for improvement.

Results: Responses to quantitative questions ranged from 4.3 to 4.6, with “amount of detail” scoring lowest and “recommending module to others” scoring highest. Areas for improvement included adding more cases to provide a broader range of difficulty and including more information on certain classes. Strengths included mnemonics, simplified spectrum of activity, and review questions and cases.

Conclusion: The module received positive feedback and evaluation results were used to make changes to improve the module for future students. Additions include more clinical cases, more information on certain antibiotics, and appendices to summarize module topics. The module is available to undergraduate medical students online to be used as a supplemental learning tool.

Comments

This work was published before the author joined Aga Khan University.

Publication (Name of Journal)

journal of the Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disease Canada= Journal Officiel de Association Pour la Microbiologie Medicale et L'infectiologie Canada

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