Didactical Elements in a Web-Based and Case-Oriented Training System in Medicine
Claudia Scheuerer,
Jochen Bernauer, Torsten Illmann, Alke Martens, Alexander Seitz, Michael Weber
University of Ulm
Abstract:
Docs n Drugs the virtual clinic is a
web-based and case-oriented training system in medicine for medical students,
medical doctors and students of related disciplines. It emphasizes on the
didactical support for the decision making process of medical treatment. We are
developing a learning tool implemented in Java and HTML. For the acquisition of
medical contents we are cooperating with physicians, specialized in the fields
of cardiology, gynecology, infectious diseases and nephrology. These
specialists work as authors for medical cases. For each medical case the author
designs a navigation path that describes the possible successions of case
elements for the learning tool. There will be sequences of case elements in
which one element follows directly to another, the so-called guided
navigation. In contrast to this guided navigation the so-called free
navigation allows the user to decide which sequence of steps he takes within a
case. In the latter form of navigation the user is almost unlimited in his or
her way through the case. Our tool allows the author to define the amount of
influence he or she wants to take on the users actions.
Questions are integrated to consolidate
the subject matter and to get the user thinking about the relations between
patient data.
Establishing a diagnosis is an essential
part of the treatment of a patient and an important educational objective in
almost every virtual case. In order to come to the right diagnosis, every new
gained aspect of the disease that the student has acquired has to be taken into
account. In our program, the user can
open the dialog for choosing the most likely differential diagnoses at any time
in the treatment of the virtual case, if the author of this case didnt
restrict it. After the user has made a
selection out of the list of the presented differential diagnoses, he or she
can ask for a specific comment for each differential diagnosis. These comments
are related to the symptoms and the results of medical tests the user has
already acquired. This feedback informs the user about the importance of a
symptom or a result of a test with respect to a special diagnosis and
reinforces corresponding patterns of thinking. In order to offer this
functionality the author has to assess each important correlation. Didactical
elements such as questions, detailed comments and navigation guidance will be
helpful in the training of a users understanding of diseases and will possibly
improve his or her ability to treat patients. The project Docs n Drugs The
virtual clinic enables users from the field of medical sciences to train their
ability of decision making in medicine. The web-based implementation and the
design of the learning tool allows both an autodidactical way of learning as
well as a distributed learning environment with an online human tutor.
Benefit in Attending
Session:
Didactical elements are important components of every CBT-/WBT-system. Our objective is to offer a very specific feedback to the users interaction with the program which guides to the adequate train of thought.
PRIMARY AUTHOR'S
INFORMATION
Claudia Scheuerer
University of Ulm, ZIBMT
Albert-Einstein-Allee 47
89081 Ulm
Germany
Telephone Number: ++49-(0)731-5025484
Fax Number: ++49-(0)731-5025309
E-mail Address: claudia.scheuerer@zibmt.uni-ulm.de
Web Site: http://www.docs-n-drugs.de/
CO-AUTHORS'
INFORMATION
1) Jochen Bernauer
2) Torsten Illmann, Michael Weber
3) Alke Martens, Alexander Seitz
Address(es):
1)Dept. for Medical Documentation and
Computer Science, Fachhochschule Ulm, D-89075 Ulm, Germany
2)Dept. for Distributed Systems,
University of Ulm, D-89069 Germany
3)Dept. of Artificial Intelligence,
University of Ulm, D-89069 Ulm, Germany
Telephone Number(s):
1)++49-(0)731-5028184
2)++49-(0)731-5024140
3)++49-(0)731-5024113
E-mail Address(es):
torsten.illmann@informatik.uni-ulm.de
martens@ares.informatik.uni-ulm.de
seitz@ares.informatik.uni-ulm.de
Web Site(s): http://www.docs-n-drugs.de/