Abstract
This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. Background: Healthcare professionals must adapt to everyday clinical controversies using their critical thinking and communication skills. Educational debates nurture these skills producing a well-rounded clinician. Their value is well established in healthcare education, yet they are not commonly employed, and there is no literature on their use in undergraduate Psychiatry teaching. Methods: We planned and implemented a one-off educational debate lesson as part of the teaching program of fourth-year medical students on their Psychiatry clinical placements. We collected and analyzed the students' feedback. Results: Although most students had no experience of debates, 79% found the learning event positive. The students also reported improvement in their confidence (58%), oral presentation skills (37%), critical thinking skills (71%) and the ability to cope with conflict (54%). In addition, there was a positive shift in their attitude towards Psychiatry (71%) and the chances of choosing it as a future speciality (33%). Conclusion: Our results showcase the benefit of using debates in shaping future doctors' non-clinical skills and practice attitudes. In this paper, we discuss a thematic analysis of students' feedback comments and reflect on several points in the planning and delivering educational debates. We also include practical recommendations for future applications.
Highlights
With motivation and appropriate skills, health care professionals can learn to address the controversies of clinical practice, and through educational debates, we can nurture such skills (Ganguli and Rancurello, 1990). Snider and Schnurer (2006, p. 6) defined debates as "structured communications on topics of interest"
The students reported improvement in their confidence (58%), oral presentation skills (37%), critical thinking skills (71%) and the ability to cope with conflict (54%)
Compared with standard methods of active learning, such as problem-based learning (PBL) or group discussions, debates are considered less exhaustive of faculty resources (Omelicheva, 2006), and their structure gives an equal chance for all learners to participate (Dundes, 2001)
Summary
Educational debates improve communication skills (Doody and Condon, 2012), the ability to think critically (Doody and Condon, 2012), attitudes to complex fields (Malone and Michael, 2018), motivation (Hartin et al, 2017), leadership (Hartin et al, 2017), and general academic performance (Malone and Michael, 2018) They focus on high-level intellectual processes; Analysis, Evaluation, and Creation, achieving a more advanced level of knowledge (Scannapieco, 1997). Healthcare professionals must adapt to everyday clinical controversies using their critical thinking and communication skills Educational debates nurture these skills producing a well-rounded clinician. Their value is well established in healthcare education, yet they are not commonly employed, and there is no literature on their use in undergraduate Psychiatry teaching
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