Hematology education in a problem-based curriculum

Abstract

The 20th century has witnessed a major shift from traditional discipline-based curriculum to an integrated curriculum starting in 1950s. In 1970s a new era has begun with the introduction of problem-based learning in medical education. In accordance with the recommendations of the World Federation of Medical Education, undergraduate medical education should be student-centred, problem-based, integrated, community-based, with electives available and systematic. This approach is widely known as SPICES, an acronym derived from the above mentioned principles. Problem-based learning (PBL) is being used in more and more medical schools around the world. However not all of these schools use PBL as the major learning method. PBL is a strong, sound and effective learning method as long as it is used as a major method. In PBL the students are presented a patient scenario to work on and during this process they