We will be doing PBL in Year 1 Medicine, for the first time in USM Medical School history after 35 years. And for the first time too, we will be using the MedLearn e-learning platform to host all the PBL trigger materials for the students (lecturers will get CDs). Each PBL trigger will be released to students an hour b4 PBL. I'm glad that MedLearn has not gone to waste after we started experimenting with it in 2005. I am glad to be the only surviving pioneer to observe this historic transformation in the teaching-learning process in undergraduate medicine. i never gave up and kept hope. It was a long wait just to get this far to see my dream come true. It is better late than never. Now that we will go highly digital, we will save paper and the trees.PBL = Problem Based Learning. I had experience from PBL throughout my year 2 study and this learning methodology will be continued in my year 3 study. In this post I will share my experience on PBL.
PBL in my opinion can be considered as adult learning, where the students is the main source of information rather than the mentor. Adult learning should be spontaneous, proactive and driven towards problem solving skills. We find out a particular information because we perceived as useful and relevant to our problem. Therefore, to conduct a good problem learning, students must know how to generate problem and to seek for the answer. PBL is not for passive learner, PBL is not for lazy people, PBL is not for dependent learner.
All the way through primary, secondary and year1 MD, most of us are very comfortable with information feeding into our brain without really engaging in digesting or thinking through the knowledge. Sometimes we are afraid of asking questions, afraid that it will be a silly question. It won't be a silly question, unless you're asking them without thinking of their relevance. Sometimes we can have hard time because too many irrelevant questions being asked about the problem, and we end up learning something else which is not required by our learning objectives/topics of the week.
For me, we can ask any question but make sure we must be clear about how should the answer of the question relevant to our problem. By doing so, we can have in mind what kind of information should we gather and what kind of information should we drop out. Besides that this will also broaden our view on a disease/problem. Sometimes things do not seem relevant because of our ignorance.
For Example, in a motor vehicle accident case, we might ask how the vehicle be repaired afterward OR what is the legal issue of motor vehicle accident . Asking how the vehicle be repaired might be relevant as this can impose on the economic burden to the family. Of course as a medical student, it might not be so relevant to find out step by step engine repair process, this information will be less prioritized. Asking about the legal issue of motor vehicle accident might be relevant because Dr. may be the one providing information or evidence to policeman. We might also discuss about public health issue here! How we can prevent further accident from happening. However, we must always prioritize our knowledge, because we have limited time in presenting our knowledge and conducting PBL within 2 hours. To save time, everyone must digest the knowledge before coming for PBL session, knowing which information should we seek for. To me it doesn't really matter if every members have to search for everything or not, but ideally everyone must be sure of what the whole group are learning now and having our own idea.
Regarding searching information, soon we know what answer should we seek for, we must also to be able to locate where the answer lies in! As mention in my previous post , in medical school we are studying about basic medical degree which comprise of basic medical sciences and clinical medicine. Therefore the answer must be available among these subject. We can get information from books in library, online research paper, journal (but to be able to do so, we must able to judge whether a paper is reliable or not- a skill to master), lecturers (sometimes this can become passive learning! we might as lecturer the recommended reference to look up.) and seniors (Well, the strength/reliability of the reference is decreasing because the answer becoming more and more subjective) However, I wouldn't recommend information from non-professional source. We are learning towards to be a professional medical doctor, why we are taking a retrograde approach ? Remember the professionalism lecture by Prof. Dr. Ma in year 1 (session 2012/2013)
Time constrain is a problem. The other problem might be the attitude of learner that is too easily be contented by the knowledge and never bother to find out more. As long as we fulfil the learning objective we can pass... This is the main main antagonist/inhibitor for a learner to have a full-fledged learning reaction. Well it is true that "asalkan aku pass, aku boleh jadi doktor dan gaji kita sama saja", but would you be satisfied on your job?
In PBL it is best to have a full vision of the patient and to treat patient holistically -> I will share in another post on the topic of holistic approach. Always remember the Bio-Psycho-Social approach to patient. Actually human is more complex that that! No 2 people are the same, even genetically identical twins, in my opinion. Identical twin might have same genetic information, but the selective expression of gene and possible epigenetic modification of gene will do all the differences. A human may have a body that function, but we also have a consciousness ,that's our mind working on the mental processes and the emotional aspect of human life. The explanation of there's a human structure to in complete control of these process is not satisfying as many cases of near death experience would beg to differ! There must be a spiritual aspect of human being, may it be called a soul or a spirit, it might be vital for life ? The idea of ovum fused with sperm will get you a zygote whose will develop into complex human is also not satisfying enough.
Anyway, the Bio-Psycho-Social aspect of patient management demands us to go further than mechanically treating the patient as a broken machine, what's the impact of disease on himself? his own self value? on his family? on the country burden? how social react to a disease? what's his expectation? what's his belief? how it is match with our doctor's agenda? how to have a patient centered service while still benefits patient? All this can be discussed in PBL. we are so lucky to have friends of all races enough to represent Malaysia situation that we should utilise this chance to enlarge the classroom to the scope of Malaysia setting, so that we'll have less culture shock when we practice later. Always relate your knowledge to your duty or else we're just wasting time trying to be a smart person/ person who literate in health science literature upon our graduation. This is what medical school didn't really teach us.
Be more proactive and thinking out of classroom, sometimes things might still be discussed in the Internet, USMSecure speed is awesome, do use the awesomeness to the fullest!
Lastly, Think Think and Think! and be responsible for everyone's learning
Sabbe Satta Sukhi Hontu
May all be well and happy
No comments:
Post a Comment