New evidence-based medicine case developed for Science of Health Systems course
In August 2017, all second-year medical students at Penn State College of Medicine participated in a small-group session featuring a AAMC-authored case scenario. The scenario portrayed a fourth-year medical student successfully performing tasks related to information-seeking in clinical settings, such as forming a clinical question and retrieving evidence for use in patient care.
The case is available on pages 48 and 49 of this document from the AAMC. If you need help accessing this information, or need it in another format, please contact AAMC.
The AAMC case was modified to include questions to prompt discussion on the critical thinking and self-directed learning behaviors portrayed in the case. It also was updated to address tasks directing medical students to use multiple online information sources, such as Dynamed and Micromedex, to answer clinical questions from the case and compare and contrast the information that they found.
The case modifications were written into guides for both students and facilitators. The case showed how external information sources must be used in conjunction with a clinician’s medical knowledge and illustrated that sometimes external evidence is lacking for the question at hand.
It ended with an exercise prompting students to consider the individual and systems barriers to use of high-quality information sources.
Student and facilitator feedback from this activity was overwhelmingly positive. Students felt that becoming more familiar with online clinical information resources offered through the library would be useful in their current coursework and beyond.
The case was modified by the evidence-based medicine instruction team: Nancy Adams, MLIS, EdD; Alan Adelman, MD, MS; Paul Haidet, MD, MPH; and Kristin Sznajder, PhD, MPH.
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If you're having trouble accessing this content, or would like it in another format, please email the Penn State College of Medicine web department.