Abstract
BackgroundMobile devices provide medical students with easy access to medical information and educational resources. Since 2013, we have followed the study use of iPads among medical students. In 2016, we observed a notable drop in the mobile device usage in the first cohort of medical students entering their clinical courses.MethodsThe aim of the study was to identify the hurdles for adopting mobile devices at the beginning of the clinical courses. We examined how students evaluated their own and the clinical teachers’ ability to use the iPad, how the study assignments fit into digital learning, and how students used the mobile device with patients. The data were collected with online surveys among three consecutive student cohorts and the distributions of closed-ended questions analyzed.ResultsResponse rates ranged from 67.5 to 90.8%. Students evaluated their own ability to use the iPad as good or excellent and teachers’ skills as relatively poor and wanted more digitally tailored assignments. They reported negative attitudes towards mobile device use in the clinical setting and were hesitant to use them in patient contact. Teachers seldom communicated suitable quality medical applications to students.ConclusionsClinical teachers need support and training to implement a learning environment and assignments appropriate for mobile devices. Both students and teachers were concerned about using these devices with patients. To achieve the full potential of digitalisation in clinical courses, their use should be developed collectively with students.
Highlights
Mobile devices provide medical students with easy access to medical information and educational resources
With the quantity of medical knowledge increasing, no one doctor nor medical student can be expected to remember everything, a problem that is in part solved by mobile technology [2, 4]
Mobile device usage in educational contexts has a history of about a decade, and in accordance with the novelty of the phenomenon the studies on device usage have only recently accumulated [1, 9] despite full iPad curriculums having existed since 2011 [3]
Summary
Mobile devices provide medical students with easy access to medical information and educational resources. Today’s medical students are the agents of change, enabling the integration of advantages of mobile devices into clinical patient care [5, 6]. Studies so far have found that students and junior doctors use mobile devices for searching information, time management, retrieving information before treating patients, reporting to senior colleagues, Folger et al BMC Medical Education (2021) 21:594 and most importantly for backing up their clinical reasoning and decision making [2, 10], but more seldom in direct patient contact [6]
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