1. E-learning support

Faculty of Medicine is using the University’s e-learning system, which is accessible at estudij.um.si

The system is connected to the Academic Information SubSystem (AIPS) which allows that all students, teaching staff and subjects are in the e-learning system. It is based on the e-learning software platform Moodle (moodle.org) that is being used in over 70.000 teaching institutions around the world.

Students log in the system by using the procedure of AIPS!

Teachers have to apply for username and password contacting alojz.tapajner@um.si

On teachers’ request presentations of e-learning and workshops for use of Moodle are organized. In the case of interest, please contact prof. Dejan Dinevski at dejan.dinevski@um.si

2. Virtual patients

Virtual patients are an interactive computerized simulation of real-life clinical scenarios. It is a relatively fresh e-learning technology that uses multimedia, interactive elements and simulation of clinical work with patients. Detailed description of the teaching technology behind virtual patients, construction of cases, its use and role in medicine have been well described in this article. Authors also write about the beginnings and development of use of virtual patients at Faculty of Medicine University of Maribor.

We use the MedU system (www.med-u.org) for virtual patients. The system has been built and is maintained by a consortium of more than 120 medical schools in USA and Canada.

Accessing instructions:

Students: Can only be invited to join. In case invitation was not received please contact the lecturer.

Lecturers: If you want to use virtual patients as an assistant, mentor or professor in a teaching process (in these roles you get additional information and management access for supervising students’ progress), please send a request to prof. Dejan Dinevski.

Attachments:

ISIS2013.pdf

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• International Association for Medical Education (AMEE)
• Association of Medical Schools in Europe (AMSE)
• World Federetaion for Medical Education (WFME)

Research in medical education is expanding and includes several profiles of professionals: physicians, psychologists, sociologists, educationalists, economists, etc. Numerous national and international institutions give an increasing emphasis on ensuring basic standards of medical education and on institutions’ presentation of appropriate activities to deliver them. So among others, current hot topics in medical education are: knowledge/skills/attitudes assessment, social responsibility of medical schools, faculty and curriculum development, active and practical learning, patient safety, etc.

Faculty of Medicine University of Maribor actively joined the medical education research community with the first two poster presentations at AMEE international conference in Glasgow, 2010. Since then we have delivered more than 20 different poster presentations and short lectures on various conferences (Photo 1), ranging from innovation descriptions, evaluations, and to smaller research projects. Currently, we also plan to publish our contributions in international journals such as Medical Teacher, Clinical Teacher and Medical Education with impact factors from 1 to 3. We will also focus on European project applications for research in medical education, which will in turn facilitate introduction of several innovations to our curriculum, hopefully adding to global developments as well. All our activities are carried out in light of global trends in the field of medical education, which increase the competency of future physicians and reflect a high level of social responsibility felt by our faculty.

We have recently published two papers in the journal of Medical Chamber of Slovenia (ISIS) with the aim of informing our physicians with current trends in medical education and encouraging their active engagement in the field:

• January 2013: Following global trends in medical education: Virtual patients
• November 2012: Following global trends in medical education: Objective structured clinical examination

Everyone who would like to actively join us is kindly invited to contact us at cim.mf@um.si.

Photo 1: collage of photographies from some medical education conferences in which we actively participated.

Publications:

Conference presentations:

The tutorial system stems from British higher education, where from it spread worldwide and created a global tradition. We included both teachers mentoring and peer teaching in our tutorial system scheme. At the core of peer teaching is the realization that the teaching and other skills peer teachers acquire are absolutely necessary for the challenges they will face as future physicians. Peer teaching today continues to evolve, both in organizational structure as well as content, which is a reflection of the different needs and visions of the various institutions that use it as an element in their curricula.

In its five years of existence at our medical faculty, peer teaching became an irreplaceable source of knowledge, experience and support for generations of students. The specific implementation and contextualization of peer teaching into existing curricular structures has continued to evolve during the years. What started as a concept of peer teaching as general guidance, curricular reinforcement, and exam preparation, has now evolved into a holistic approach to studentcentered medical education. Its mission now is to ensure that each individual student develops his/her full academic, extracurricular and personal potential. Thus peer teaching at Faculty of Medicine University of Maribor today stands for general peer assisted learning in Year-1 and Year-2, clinical skills and competencies for all years, and a career seminar for the clinical year students. Throughout we emphasize rigorous evaluation, which grounds peer teaching on this faculty as an evidence-based teaching approach. It also enables direct student involvement with the cutting edge of knowledge and research in the field of medical education (www.ameestudents.org/archives/1097). 

In the future we will focus on enhancing teachers engagement in the tutorial system and integrating the curriculum with its subjects vertically and horizontally. We believe that our graduates need to develop a deeply interconnected knowledge of medicine, since the future development of medicine lies between the traditional disciplines, in the as yet undefined intersections of separate subjects. With the added pressure of an open EU labour market, we intend to make peer teaching serve our students in helping them connect all aspects of their lives and work into an excellent understanding of medicine in all its complexity. 

Clinical skills learning is an important part of medical education. In the last years, simulation has become a very important teaching tool in this process. Following current trends in medical education, we started an active clinical skills teaching approach in 2010 when our faculty obtained a fully equipped clinical skills laboratory where medical students can practice some of the basic procedures in a safe and controlled environment even before they approach the patients on the wards.

Clinical skills competency learned in this manner can be evaluated in different ways. One of them is an objective structured clinical examination (OSCE), which is a modern clinical skills evaluation tool. The first OSCE at our faculty was conducted in November 2010 in an elective subject Selected topics and novelties in propedeutics. The first OSCE was composed of six selected stations and performed in two days. All the participating students successfully passed the examination. Until present, we have organized several different OSCEs, the largest one being organized for 70 students in a subject Internal medicine and propedeutics.

Clinical skills teaching in our clinical skills laboratory is currently incorporated in several different subjects:

• First aid,
• Internal medicine and propedeutics (Photo 1),
• Selected topics and novelties in propedeutics,
• Family medicine,
• Internal medicine – practical internship,
• Anaesthesiology,
• Emergency medicine,
• etc.  

Photo 1: Peer tutors training.

Students can practice different clinical skills:

• venepuncture,
• infusion set-up,
• peripheral venous cannulation,
• arterial blood gas sampling,
• non-invasive blood pressure measurement,
• basic life support,
• intramuscular and subcutaneous injection application,
• rectal examination,
• bladder catheterisation,
• abdominal ultrasound examination (Photo 2),
• etc.    

Photo 2: Abdominal ultrasound examination.

We are also organizing occasional clinical skills workshops, which enable our medical students to deepen their knowledge and competences in their field of interest. Below this text, you can find some photos from our clinical skills laboratory.

Photo 3: Peer tutors training – history taking.

Photo 4: Peer tutor performing clinical examination of the abdomen.

Photo 5: Peer tutor performing cardiovascular examination.

Photo 6: Peer tutor performing basic life support. 

Photo 7: Peer tutors performing bladder catheterization.

IP SimClip 2013 – Today we embark on the Day 3 of Erasmus IP SimClip 2013 programme

IP SimClip 2013 - MF UM Students Applications

We are proudly announcing that an Erasmus intensive program on simulation in medicine will be taking place at Faculty of Medicine University of Maribor from 16th until 29th of June 2013. It will include basic clinical skills practice on simple simulators (eg. venepuncture, urinary bladder catheterization) as well as patient management skills on complex high-tech simulators (e.g. interventional cardiology, endoscopy, laparoscopic surgery). Four partner medical schools from Rijeka, Wroclaw, Uppsala, and Maribor will be cooperating in program delivery with their students and teachers.

Due to limited number of spaces we decided to release a call for our medical students application for participation in the program. Only our undergraduate medical students enrolled in Years-3 to Year-6 are eligible to apply. Serious candidates should send a short motivation letter (up to 200 words), curriculum vitae, and basic personal information at: cim.mf@um.si. The deadline for applications is April 15th 2013 at 8 pm. The candidates will be notified on the final selection decisions made by the Local Organizing Committee by April 30th 2013.

More on IP SimClip 2013.

Workshop – ECG basics

In cooperation with Clinic for internal medicine, Center for Medical Education organized a two day workshop for Year-6 medical students entitled: ECG basics. It was delivered on 14th and 15th of March 2013.

On the first days’ agenda were short interactive lectures, presenting basics of electrophysiology of the heart, basic ECG interpretation and arrhythmias, whereas on the second day students engaged in small working groups in which they were practicing ECG interpretation under mentors’ guidance. An exam followed this intensive practical work. Student responses were excellent and we are preparing a repeat workshop in upcoming months.

We would like to take this opportunity and thank all the students who joined the workshop and all mentors/co-workers who sacrificed their precious time and energy for booklet production, lecture and small working groups activities delivery.