Abstract:

The use of clinical skills training using task trainers and simulation has expanded considerably in veterinary schools across the globe over the last ten years. While many veterinary schools have added clinical skills laboratories to their programs, the optimum student: facilitator ratio has not been defined and many teaching sessions are probably understaffed, at least in part, due to budget constraints. Students are often expected to practice skills using models in a clinical skills laboratory with limited supervision or feedback from qualified instructors. To ensure students practice correctly, many veterinary schools have developed task sheets or videos to accompany models. In an effort to utilize technology to improve learning resources, a media guided self-directed suturing practical teaching session has been developed using the iBook® platform. An iBook® allows the author to provide text and videos sequentially in one location.

A surgical skills teaching session is offered to veterinary students in their sixth semester surgery laboratory course. The course follows a rigorous 2 year essential veterinary skills curriculum in which students are taught basic surgical skills such as suturing and ligature placement on low fidelity task trainers with facilitators present to provide feedback. The objective of this teaching session is to allow the students to practice practical applications of their newly gained skills on cadaver tissue using direction from an iBook®. IPads® for viewing the iBook are set up on stands at each station. Students work in pairs to perform six surgical tasks on cadaver skin, skin incisions, placement of a passive drain, purse string suture, punch biopsy, securing a tube using a finger trap suture and suturing the subcutaneous and skin layers. The iBook® provides direction on how and why one might perform the tasks and how the students can assess their own work and that of their partner. The process of developing the iBook® chapter and feedback from faculty and students concerning the experience of the teaching session and the usefulness of the iBook will be presented.

Keywords:

Media guided instruction, veterinary education, clinical skills, e-learning.