FACULTY
DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE
Training Manual
for Interdisciplinary Session Facilitators
Learning Resources for IDS
Parr Thacker
The most important
aspect of a learning resource center is its adaptability to both the health
science student and the preceptor/ instructors needs. A good learning resource center should avail to both the student
and instructors a variety of tools used to enhance an interdisciplinary session
(IDS) or interdisciplinary experience (IDE).
At a minimum, a Learning Resource Center should provide for IDS is:
Other resources a
LRC could provide
When using the LRC
resources, the first thing to consider is the technical comfort level of the
IDS instructor. It will not do anyone
any good to be confused by technical issues for the entire IDS session. The more a person knows about a topic or
product, the more comfortable they will be discussing it or using it in a
demonstration. We also have to keep in
mind that the technical level of students coming out of the schools is growing
greater with each year. So, to keep up
with the students and to stay innovative ourselves, the more we can use
technology to teach (as long as it is an effective tool, and not for the sake
of using something because it is new), then the better our organization will be
in the future. It also allows the student to prepare a discussion and show
examples (pictures, graphs etc) as a starting or finishing point of the IDS
Along with Internet
skills, basic software skills are essential, such as being familiar with
Microsoft Office products (Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint and even
Publisher). Probably the most useful of
these for an IDS session would be PowerPoint.
To be able to build a proper presentation and deliver it effectively is
a very helpful skill to have. The
equipment used to give presentations should also familiar to students and
instructors, such as laptop computers and projectors. Microsoft Publisher can be used if part of the IDS or IDE may
include preparing patient education brochures, or signs to post around the town
about an issue discussed.
Also helpful in an
IDS session is the use of PDA’s. Along
with the generic uses of PDA’s such as contacts and calendar features, there
are many types of software, which could be of use in an IDS and in practice also. These downloadable applications include
medical references, drug and pharmaceutical references, diagnostic tools, as well as with many specialty software,
such as pediatrics, hematology and neurology.
Some the more useful software is free to download from the web, but
other specialty software may have a nominal fee.
Along with the use
of the basic technologies mentioned above, there are some other applications of
technology that may be used successfully in the future. Those applications deal with distance
learning, such as the use of video conferencing. Video conferencing could be used by students in different
geographic areas of a consortium or even between consortiums. As of now the cost and reliability of these
applications prevent us from adding this resource to our LRC’s, but hopefully
in the future the cost will decrease, and the reliability will increase, and
allow us to use this type of application to it’s capability.
The IDS Instructor
should keep in mind all the disciplines in attendance at the IDS and find (or
have it as part of the session for the student to find) appropriate resources
and web sites particular to each field.
Students should be an excellent reference for other students on quality
web sites that each can use to better understand the others discipline.
The Internet can be
an overwhelming wasteland of low quality web sites about medical
information. The following websites
have been chosen for their in-depth coverage of
medical topics
online and their ease of use. Because most of the sites listed are gateways to
thousands of other medical web-pages, book-marking just one of them should
ensure that you are kept informed and up-to-date.
AMA Physician Select (www.ama-assn.org/aps/amahg.htm)
Centers for Disease Control (www.cdc.gov/)
Thrive Online (www.thriveonline.com/health/liu.drugsearch.html)
U.S. National Library of Medicine
(www.nlm.nih.gov/)
Medical databases and index sites
Cliniweb (http://www.ohsu.edu/)
The Clinweb site is an index and table of contents of clinical
information on the worldwide web. It has recently been expanded to
include nearly 10,000 URLs indexed by terms from the Medical
Subject
Headings (MeSH) Anatomy and Disease trees. These URLs can be
accessed
with the Sapphire and Mesh search engine systems.
Doctor's Guide to the
Internet (http://www.pslgroup.com/docguide.htm)
Doctor's Guide to the Internet is a clear and simple to use
website
that collates global medical news and information services with a
view
"to promote informed and appropriate use of medicines"
by doctors and
their patients. The medical resources for doctors and information
for
patients are divided by type, ranging from lists of all available
online journals to medical site directories covering almost every
medical issue. This site has some simple but effective features
that
minimise time spent on searching. For example, before leaving the
Doctor's Guide site most links have attached a brief description
explaining where the user is about to go.
Journal Club on the web homepage
This web site is an interactive medical "journal club".
Every 2 weeks
the site author, Michael Jacobson, comments on articles from
recent
medical publications. Feedback from readers is appended to the
article
summaries. The articles are primarily in the field of adult
internal
medicine and mainly from the New England Journal of Medicine and
Annals of Internal Medicine.
Journal
Club on the Web (www.webcom.com/mjljweb/jrnlclb/index.html)
MEd Guide (kernighan.imc.akh-wien.ac.at/stz/plattner/Medguide%5fplus.html)
MEd Guide is a "guide to medical education and related
resources on
the Internet". A simple way to use the site is via the
specialities’
index, which then subdivides into online journals and education
resources
for your chosen subject. The site also links to catalogue
information
from libraries all over the world via the OPACS system or the
worldwide web.
Medical Matrix (http://www.medmatrix.org/)
The Medical Matrix website is a comprehensive list of "full-content,
unrestricted access, Internet clinical-medicine resources".
The sites
described are ranked according to quality, peer review, full
content,
multimedia features, and level of clinical content. A key feature
of
Medical Matrix material is that it has been designed for quick
access
to medical documents so that they can be used during the time span
of
a patient visit.
Medical Education Online (www.med-ed-online.org/)
Medical
Education Online (MEO) is a forum for disseminating information on educating
physicians and other health professionals. Manuscripts on any aspect of the
process of training health professionals will be considered for peer-reviewed
publication in an electronic journal format. In addition to manuscripts, MEO
publishes book reviews and provides a repository for resources such as
curricula, data sets, syllabi, software, and instructional material developers
wish to make available to the health education community. Rich resource section, including "curricula
and teaching materials" consisting of a number of online cases
Office of Medical Education Research &
Development, College of Human Medicine, Michigan State University
Virtual
Hospital (www.vh.org/)
Developed
at the University of Iowa Health Care.
Multimedia teaching files, patient simulations. Information on ABC warfare for providers
also included.
UpToDate
(www.uptodate.com/)
Summaries
and specific recommendations for patient care culled from published evidence.
An excellent web
site to check out to see structured Interdisciplinary Session with full use of
the web for all disciplines is the East Carolina University Intersdiscplinary
Rural Health Training Program. (http://fed_med.ecu.edu/irhtp/).
It contains many example cases and with learning objectives for each discipline
and links to online resources for IDS.
Parr Thacker Site Coordinator Cabwaylingo
Consortium pthacker@vhs-wv.org
Derrick Day Director of IT for Rural
Outreach WVU dday@hsc.wvu.edu