Sexy Snake is a learning game where clusters of connected items taken from medical sexuology have to be filled in a compartment of an animated snake. When a cluster of items is filled in correctly the compartment disappears and finally the snake will eat its tail and disappear completely. Sexy Snake is based on sexuology- and treatment of STD- card games we created before, with rules like the card game Gin Rummy which idea in its turn is based upon an article in Advances in Physiology Education: Educational Card Games For Understanding Gastrointestinal Physiology, Odenweller et al Am. J. Physiol. 275: S78-S84, 1998. We are playing card games with third year (out of five) medical students for four years now. Sessions are in the afternoon after traditional lectures on the same subject in the morning. Small groups of 10 -12 students are formed. The pre-game-knowledge of medical sexuology in students is small. Playing the game creates excitement in the classroom with a desire for students to learn more from sexuology from the recommended Dutch "Leerboek Seksuologie" When enthusiasm is high we stop the game. We did not evaluate this card game ourselves, but based its use on the evaluation from Odenweller et al. In October 2002 sexy Snake will be played in the same sessions and on the University of Utrecht. Our Demo is of benefit to the participants because we want to show that any subject can be made into a game that creates excitement and promotes active learning. We did games on physiology of normal pregnancy and the beginning of birth with gynecologists before, with the same effect. Sexy Snake will be on the Internet as well as on CD-ROM. The program is in Dutch, but an English demonstration is being prepared. Evaluation data will be added as it becomes available.

BENEFIT TO PARTICIPANTS ATTENDING SESSION:

All medical and other university teachers look for ways to make learning more like playing. Card games to learn gastrointestinal physiology were successful in teaching students with the fun extra. The Sexy Snake is a trial to teach medical sexuology by playing a game.

Tom Schneider
Erasmus MC, verloskunde Sk 4130
Postbox 2060
3000 CB Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Phone tel: +31104636886
Fax: +31 10 4636815
Email: doets@oig.fgg.eur.nl

CO-AUTHORS:
Tjeerd Visser
Email: t.visser@it-rex.nl
Mathijs Doets
doets@oig.fgg.eur.nl
Institute of Education
Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam