Abstract:

Introduction: Students and alumni of School of Medicine Mostar stressed certain problems in education. Author, as a chair of Internal medicine at School of Medicine Mostar tried to get detailed information.
Objective: Identification of students' and alumni opinion about educational weak points, to find out possible solutions and implement improvements.
Method: The anonymous questionnaire was distributed to students and alumni of School of Medicine Mostar in December 2009. After analysis of results, priorities were identified and changes done.
Results: Forty-six students and 27 alumni were included in the study. All 46 students (100%) pointed to huge number of diseases assigned to students, 38 (83%) students underlined inadequate training of clinical skills, and 29 (63%) students accented unsatisfied organization of seminars.Twenty-five (93%) alumni as a weak point stressed low level of competence in solving undifferentiated medical problems, 23 (85%) criticized excessive number of information they had to learn in disorganized way during the study, and 20 (74%) emphasized inadequate system of examinations.
Discussion: According to the results of the survey, the most prominent educational weak points were identified. Both surveyed groups underlined that students have to learn a huge number of diseases presented in disorganized fashion. Namely, Internal medicine textbooks are too extensive as they are written for multiple groups of readers: students of medicine, specialists of Internal medicine and subspecialists of various specializations in Internal medicine. Students do not know which topic is really important, which diseases are common and which are rare. Finally, examination topics are not organized in accordance to their relevance.
It was concluded that, according to results of questionnaire, remodelling of educational process in School of Medicine in Mostar is a necessity. This academic year first three steps were implemented:
1.Organization of learning objectives by hierarchical manner,
2.Transferring of learning objectives into educational process,
3.Implementation of learning objectives into examination topics.
As a first step, learning objectives were selected in two groups. First group included important topics: a) urgencies and b) common diseases. Content of second group were less relevant, rare diseases.
The second step was transferring of learning objectives organized by hierarchical order into educational process. All important topics from the first group were included in curricum in more extended range than before. Less important topics from the second group were included into educational process in lesser degree.
After that, a list of examination topics was made. Students were informed that urgencies and common diseases are topics students must know and understand completely and for an excellent grade. Other, less important topics could be known for lesser grade. According to these rules students now know what is important, how they will be assessed, and what kinds of answers are expected from them at examination.

Keywords:

learning objectives, hierarchy, remodelling, educational process.