POSTER

POSTER

"Docs 'n Drugs - The Virtual Polyclinic": Goal Based Scenarios in a Training System for Diagnostic Reasoning in Medicine

Hubert Liebhardt M.A.
University of Ulm, Germany

ABSTRACT:

A team of informaticians, physicians, and instructional designers developed the project "Docs 'n Drugs - The Virtual Polyclinic" (DnD), a web- and case-based learning system, which consists of six main components: training system, authoring system, administration system, intelligent tutoring service, telecollaboration service, and evaluation service. Since the beginning of 2000, nearly 300 medical students of the University of Ulm, Germany, and 25 authors have been working with the system (Illmann, 2001). Since early 2001 the system went online and is open to public, with some selected medical training cases in German. Current medical specialty partners are nephrology, cardiology, pediatrics, infectious diseases, psychiatry, neurology, and gynecology.

Instructional Strategy: The Goal Based Scenarios (GBS) presented in this poster represent the instructional strategy of the DnD training cases. In designing a training case the author uses an instructional strategy, which is based on the educational theory of Goal Based Scenarios developed by Schank (1998). The main target skill of the training system comprises "diagnostic reasoning in medicine".

The GBS contains four aspects implemented in the training system. First, embedded in a broad context the training system provides a situation-framework. In this framework, a complex "cover story" describes the situation confronting the doctor on duty. The doctor's functions and responsibilities have to be clarified in the situation-framework. The student is invited to put himself in the position of the doctor. Also, part of the cover story is the patient's actual situation. The first patient impression, described by the author, is given in the information-framework. Multimedia elements help to offer a broad spectrum of stimuli.

Second, a clear overall mission for the training case determines to find the correct diagnosis and finally to choose an appropriate therapy. To conduct diagnosis and therapy the training system offers various support elements. The navigation-framework organized in the four clinical diagnostic steps, history taking, physical examination, technical and laboratory examinations support the search for relevant information in order to make suitable decisions. The student has to act as the physician to order these examinations.

Third, the navigation options suit different classes of tasks, which focus on discovering and explaining. The training system guides the student to find the important and significant patient-data. During this process, different tools support the search process. A folder with various differential diagnosis options accompanies the learning process. An intelligent tutor provides advice, if the student asks for assistance. All data gathered during the examination of an individual patient is summarized in a separate folder for each patient studied.

Fourth, the students are urged to search for further information, respond to questions, and choose alternative solutions. For the extensive search process the intelligent tutor guides the student to new information. In some parts of the training system the student has to respond to a questionnaire about the examination process and diseases. The third and fourth aspect of GBS describes the structure of the scenario and the implementation in the training system.

Literature

Illmann, T.; Martens, A.; Seitz, A.; Weber, M.: Structure of Training Cases in Web-Based Case-Oriented Training Systems, Proceedings of ICALT, Madison (USA), 2001.

Schank, R. (Ed.): Inside Multi-Media Case-Based Reasoning. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum Ass, 1998.

BENEFIT TO PARTICIPANTS ATTENDING SESSION:

The session will introduce and demonstrate a learning system, which were implemented in 2000 in the pre-clinical and clinical curricula at the University of Ulm. The importance of our GBS-training system, founded in educational theory, can be seen to be a part of our instructional strategy.

Hubert Liebhardt
University of Ulm - ZIBMT
Projectgroup "Docs 'n Drugs"
Albert-Einstein-Allee 47
D-89081 Ulm
Germany
Phone: +49 731 5025337
Fax: +49 731 5025309
Email: hubert.liebhardt@medizin.uni-ulm.de
Website: http://www.docs-n-drugs.de

CO-AUTHORS:
1. Bettina Counè
2. Bettina Kessler

1. Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg
Institute of Education Science
Rempartstrasse 11
D-79098 Freiburg, Germany

2. Universität Ulm
Department of Medical Psychology
Projectgroup "Docs 'n Drugs"
Am Hochstraess 8
>D-89081 Ulm

Phone:
1. fon +49 761 2032448
2. fon +49 731 50256142. bettina.kessler@medizin.uni-ulm.de

Website:
1. http://www.ezw.uni-freiburg.de
2. http://www.docs-n-drugs.de