Abstract:

Medical technology has evolved in a tremendous way in the last century, reflecting a revolution in how medicine is practiced nowadays [1]. Medical education is a field of increasing complexity, where education supporting software is becoming more prevalent [2, 3].

Following the development of “Virtual Quiz” [4], a tool build with the objective of improve identification of anatomy structures, we designed a new web-based application which functions as a study manager towards the improvement of students cognitive competences in clinical anatomy.
This work aims to present this application and discuss its use as a tool for teaching/learning in medical education.

The study manager application has five main sections. In two of these sections, “Virtual Quiz” and “Identifier”, students can practice their capacity to identify anatomical structures in x-ray, TC and MRI films, as well as images of sectional anatomy. “Clinical Vignettes” section consists in a group of multiple choice questions, presented as clinical cases. The other two sections, “Flash Cards” and “Animated Graphics” enable a quick and directed revision of the course. The progress is indicated by statistical analysis, which incorporates the results of the students.
With this tool different indicators can be collected: the quantitative individual and general performance of students in each section, the amount of time expended in each sections, the percentage of correct/wrong of each question, as well as the answer assigned by the students.

The development of this tool will provide a solid background for application in a new curricular reform, where technologies are integrated in the medical course.

[1] Groth-Vasselli, B., Singh, K., Farsworth, PN. (1995), Design of a web-based towards improving acquisition of cognitive skills Clinical Anatomy, Journal of Medicine, 26 (5-6), pp. 323-331.
[2] Frenk, J., et al (2010), Health professionals for a new century: transforming education to strengthen health systems in an interdependent world, Lancet, 376 (9756), pp. 1923-1958.
[3] Horton, R. (2010) A new epoch for health professionals’ education, Lancet, 376 (9756), pp. 1875-1877.
[4] Ferreira Tavares, M., Ribeiro, M., Amaral, M., Ribeiro, H., Machado, J., Povo, A., Severo, M.: Towards the development of skills in medical education: “the virtual quiz identification station”. Proceedings of ICERI2009 Conference, Madrid, Spain, 2009, pp 2315-2319.

Keywords:

Web-based application, clinical anatomy, cognitive skills.