Influence of Technology on Medical Education at NSU-COM

Technology, which has dramatically changed our lives, has prepared us for a much simpler yet demanding and challenging future. The impact of technology in medical education is unparalleled at any point in history, while changes in all facets of medical education have occurred within short timeframes. Nova Southeastern University College of Osteopathic Medicine (NSU-COM) prides itself on providing cutting-edge medical education to its students, which is evidenced by the numerous technological upgrades it has implemented over the past several years.

 

NSU purchased the lecture-capture tool, Tegrity, which the college adopted for its curriculum use. This has been an invaluable instructional tool that allows instructors to create presentations that can be streamed to students over the Internet. After a class is captured, students using a secured network can log into WebCT and access the Tegrity service. By using Tegrity, students can review class content anytime, anywhere, and at their own pace to help them focus on topics that require more time to fully comprehend.

 

To enhance the interactive nature of medical education, NSU-COM installed the TurningPoint® Audience Response System, which allows faculty lecturers to include interactive questions and students to respond to questions on the fly during the course of a lecture by instantaneously “clicking” their responses. The TurningPoint® system used by NSU-COM faculty members communicates seamlessly with Microsoft PowerPoint. The hardware, which is small and minimal, includes a USB receiver plugged into the lecture hall computer and the audience keypads (i.e., “the clickers”) held in the students’ hands. Lecturers can easily insert questions that are formatted as multiple choice, true/false, yes/no, or other types of questions into their existing lecture presentations. The lecture hall computer automatically records all the individual student responses and generates a graph on the projection screen showing the percent of students who select each question option.

 

The college now uses an electronic data capture program called Education Management System to audio and videotape all student encounters in the Simulation Lab, which has 12 rooms equipped with two video cameras in each that provide the ability to view all angles of student human simulation (standardized patients) as well as high-fidelity mechanical simulation.

 

High-fidelity simulation is another modality available to faculty members and students. High-fidelity simulation helps guide student knowledge from acquisition to application and prepares them for clinical responsibilities. A high-fidelity mannequin is an extensive electronic computer with skin covering the body, which is programmed to perform simulated functions of various human conditions/diseases.

 

As health care embraced electronic medical/health records, an opportunity to provide another teaching/learning modality evolved at the college. In addition to learning traditional documentation such as SOAP notes, NSU-COM students are introduced to a student electronic medical record (EMR) system. The EMR is implemented into the high-fidelity simulation experience. Once students complete their “patient encounter,” they document the encounter in the EMR system as they will do during clinical rotations and residency training.

 

Opportunities for practice in clinical environments help students learn to apply the knowledge they have gained as students. However, the demanding schedule and time constraints of a medical student present burdensome barriers. This challenge has provided an opportunity to add a new learning modality for students called Second Life that will allow them to develop a virtual clinic they can access at any time to practice clinical skills. In this manner, the college will teach students to design an avatar of themselves and “fly” to the NSU Virtual Clinic to practice on virtual patients using cases scenarios submitted by faculty members.

 

At NSU, the influence of technology in medical education provides an opportunity for continuous improvement whether in administration, curriculum, or educational modalities.