Learning Habits of Medical Students: A Review on the Book “Way of Learning in Medicine”

Abstract

The essential findings obtained by our investigations may be summarized as follows: 1. Taking into account that factual information must be transmitted when teaching and learning pathology, no method can be considered as being clearly superior to any other. 2. Steady open-mindedness and regularly reorganized teaching programs provide the necessary conditions for giving an impression to the students that their feelings are being respected. Even though this will not result in an increased objective efficiency based on standardized facts, their learning attitude will improve significantly due to a subjective feeling of satisfaction. Thus, if pathologists wish to convince more students that their field of interest is an attractive specialty by giving challenging examples of their work, they will have to offer a wide-ranging training program to the students that is updated regularly. 3. The factual knowledge in pathology can only be brought up to a higher standard by introducing additional intermediate examinations, since more demands made on the time devoted to pathology cannot be justified in many cases because as a consequence other disciplinary sciences would have to be neglected. 4. Varied teaching programs should be available in order to allow the individual student to choose an adequate method depending on his predilections. 5. The teachers should likewise be prepared to comply with a fluctuating teaching program, since this will provoke greater self-commitment. The chance that undergraduates and postgraduates may show more enthusiasm for the specialty of pathology will increase if the teachers themselves enjoy teaching their specialty.