Purpose: In the 2016-2017 school year, our Medical School embarked on a new 6-year curriculum. Core principles of the new curriculum include system-based learning and integration of pre-clinical and clinical studies. In the course "Introduction to the Healthy Human Body", the students were given 6 hours of lectures on the physical principles of imaging, including plain films, CT, ultrasound and MRI. The purpose of our online exercise was to provide clinical examples, to illustrate the physical principles outlined in the lectures.
Materials and Methods: The exercise was presented on Moodle, which is a free and open-source software learning management system, used by many academic institutions, including the Hebrew University. It included 3 video clips: (1) Introduction, (2) an interactive exercise presented on an EDpuzzle platform and (3) a final clip presenting the radiological interpretation to the questions in the exercise. All video clips were prepared at the Medical School`s Multimedia Studio. The interactive exercise included 9 cases, each with 1-6 images. Questions related to the images included identification of anatomic structures and obvious pathological findings. Answers were typed by the students in a provided space and were submitted electronically. Students performed the exercise at home and were instructed to use all available reference materials including textbooks, atlases, articles and the Internet. The interpretation video was available for viewing only after the submission deadline for the exercise. After completing the exercise and viewing the answers` clip, the students were asked to provide feedback for the exercise.
Results: 247 students submitted the exercise successfully, and no major technical flaws occurred. In their feedback, some students felt that lack of background knowledge in anatomy and pathology limited their ability to answer the questions properly. Nevertheless, altogether the feedback was encouraging, and the students felt that the exercise was engaging, challenging and interesting.
Conclusions: An online exercise for first-year Medical Students in Radiology is feasible and facilitates active participation. Students should be prepared to expect self-learning in order to successfully complete the exercise. This method allows the student to look at clinical problems at home and obviates the need for multiple instructors and special computer classes. We intend to use a similar method for pre-clinical Radiology teaching in various organ systems (e.g. the gastrointestinal system).
