Practice and exploration of integrated digestive system course

Abstract

Objective To explore how to integrate the digestive system course in clinical study and compare the teaching effect. Methods Medical students studied in Shanghai General Hospital affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University from April to December 2014 were divided into two groups. The group of 33 students of 2011 undergraduate of five-year program of Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine was the participating group. The group of 26 students of 2011 undergraduate of seven-year program of Nanjing Medical University was the control group. The participating group accepted the study of integrated digestive system course, while the control group accepted the classic digestive system course. The students were required to do questionnaires and have tests about their clinical theory on digestive system while the courses were finished. The data were collected and statistically analyzed. Results The teachers and students of the participating group took the positive attitude to the contents and teaching form of the integrated digestive system course. The teachers hope to improve their teaching skills. With respect to the assessment of the knowledge about the digestive system, the scores about the participating group were higher than the control group in traditional internal medicine digestive system examination (25.85±4.42)vs(24.92±3.69), P>0.05, while the scores about the participating group were significantly lower than the control group in traditional surgery digestive system examination (39.82±8.05)vs(46.69±3.31), P<0.05. Conclusions System integrated course is helpful to improve medical students’ learning efficiency and clinical thinking ability. The teaching effect of system integrated course may be improved by establishing supporting policies, strengthening teacher training and improving evaluation system. Key words: Clinical teaching; Integrated course; Digestive system; Clinical ability