Do Voluntary Lab-Based Active Learning Sessions Impact Medical Student Knowledge Retention?

Background: Despite recent evidence demonstrating the benefits of case-based and active learning strategies in medical education, many medical schools have reduced or entirely eliminated teaching laboratories in medical microbiology courses. The objective of our investigation was to analyze the impact of a voluntary hands-on microbiology laboratory session on students' knowledge retention and ability to apply the underlying principles to exam questions in our Introduction to Infectious Diseases (IID) course.

Methods: We compared the performance of students participating in the wet labs with those who did not, analyzing scores on exam questions directly related to the concepts presented in the laboratory session and their overall scores on the IID module exam.

Evaluating the effectiveness of undergraduate clinical education programs.

Medical schools should use a variety of measures to evaluate the effectiveness of their clinical curricula. Both outcome measures and process measures should be included, and these can be organized according to the four-level training evaluation model developed by Donald Kirkpatrick. Managing evaluation data requires the institution to employ deliberate strategies to monitor signals in real-time and aggregate data so that informed decisions can be made.

Impact of Hurricane Katrina on medical student academic performance: the Tulane experience.

Background: Hurricane Katrina forced the temporary closure of Tulane University School of Medicine requiring relocation to the Texas Medical Center in Houston, Texas. This required curricular restructuring, and resulted in faculty/student challenges. The effect of these stresses on student performance was studied.