POSTER

Multimedia Driven Education Significantly Improves Medical Student’s Understanding of Operative Procedures in Heart Surgery.

Reinhard Friedl , Helmut Höppler , Wilfried Scholz, Karl Ecard, Andreas Hannekum, Sylvia Stracke, Dept . Heart Surgery, University Hospital Ulm, Germany

ABSTRACT:

Background Problem: Complex operations of the heart are difficult to understand. An online multimedia-teaching program about the operative technique of aortic valve replacement has been developed and implemented into the curriculum at our faculty. It addresses students and residents (http://www.lamedica.de/). It is based on a database-driven educational system [1, 2] and contains more than 100 audio and video sequences as well as many interactive 2D and 3D computer animations [3, 4]. This study has been performed to assess the impact of the system in improving knowledge, skills and motivation as required during operative procedures in heart surgery.

Methods/ Tools: 43 students were randomized in a prospective study to either use multimedia (n=20) or a specially designed textbook (n=23), displaying accurately the same content. Each video and animation was represented by one or several images. Next day, both groups participated in an aortic valve replacement operation during which they answered a standardized 28 questions knowledge-interview. Psychometric evaluations (HILVE, SUCA, FAM) scoring from 1 (poor) to 7 (excellent) were accomplished at the end of the study. We carefully controlled for frequent confounders as identical instructional method, identical amount of information, identical circumstances of students exposure to the content.

Results: Mean percentage of correct answers during the operation was 85±4.5% in the online group and 61±4.7% in the text group (p<0.0001). The online group needed significantly less study time (101±16 min) than the text group (121±17 min), (p<0,001). Self-reported competency in the online group was 6.2±0.7 and 5.5±0.5 in the text group (p<0.05). Both groups felt that the respective method they used facilitated understanding of complex procedures (online group: mean scoring 5.9±0.4; text group: mean scoring 5.8±0.9).

Conclusion: The demonstrated educational multimedia system significantly improves education in heart surgery, where understanding of complex temporal and spatial events during operations is essential. In terms of study time it is also a very efficient method. Psychometric evaluation revealed that the students felt also very confident and well prepared with the print version. We successfully implemented LaMedica into the curriculum where all students routinely use it.

Literature:

1 Friedl R, Preisack M, Schefer M, Klas W, Tremper J, Rose T, Bay J, Albers J, Engels P, Guilliard P, Vahl CF, Hannekum A. CardioOp: an integrated approach to teleteaching in cardiac surgery. Stud Health Technol Inform. 2000;70:76-82.

2 Friedl R, Preisack MB, Klas W, Rose T, Stracke S, Quast KJ, Hannekum A, Godje O.: Virtual Reality and 3D Visualizations in Heart Surgery Education. Heart Surg Forum. 2002;5(3):E17-21.

3 Melamed RJ, Friedl R, Engl T, Lanwert S, Preisack MB, Jonas D, Bickeboller R. LaMedica. The medical education academy on the internet. Urologe A. 2002 Jan;41(1):18-25. German.

4 Friedl R, Klas W, Westermann U, Rose T, Tremper J, Stracke S, Godje O, Hannekum A, Preisack MB. The CardioOP-Data Clas (CDC). Development and application of a thesaurus for content management and multi-user teleteaching in cardiac surgery. Methods Inf Med. 2003;42(1):68-78

BENEFIT TO PARTICIPANTS ATTENDING SESSION:

Few studies clearly demonstrate improvement in medical education over traditional modalities while controlling for frequent confounders. As a novelty we showed the superior impact of multimedia-driven teaching versus print-medium on students performance during an operation of the open heart. Taking into account the tremendous costs while developing educational multimedia sharing, re-use and exchange of media for different instructional purposes is desirable by the use of content-management-systems.

Reinhard Friedl, MD

Dept. of Heart Surgery

University Hospital Ulm

Steinhˆvelstrasse 9

89075 Ulm

Phone: +49-731-50021538

Fax: +49-731-50027319

reinhard.friedl@medizin.uni-ulm.de

Website: http://www.lamedica.de/

CO-AUTHORS:

Helmut Höppler (1), Wilfried Scholz (1), Karl Ecard (1), Andreas Hannekum (1), Sylvia Stracke (2)

(1) Dept Heart Surgery

University Hospital Ulm

Steinhˆvelstrasse 9

89075 Ulm

(2) Div. of Nephrology

University Hospital Ulm

Robert Koch Strasse 8

89081 Ulm

Phone: (1) +49-731-50021538

(2) +49-731-50024341

Fax: (1)+49-731-50027319

(2)+49-731-50024483

Email: [first name].[family name]@medizin.uni-ulm.de