Article
Information Search and Collaborative Working - Practical computer training for medical students
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Authors
Received: | January 15, 2009 |
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Revised: | February 5, 2009 |
Accepted: | February 18, 2009 |
Published: | April 6, 2009 |
Outline
Poster
Working with a computer has become an important part of our stundents’ life. Although many students use computers for everyday activities, searching the web for information is too often done with little critical attention to the reliability of the source. The web is rarely searched for scientific content or used for collaborative work. In a practical training session medical students had to find specific information about a given topic, compile an overview, and discuss the outcome. Teams of 2 or 3 students, chose one of eight topics. Every student then had to do their own search and document the findings. Finally the team had to submit a written summary. A collaborative working environment was developed for this purpose. Topics for search and discussion were somewhat controversial medical issues which are also broadly discussed by the public such as the “morning after pill” (see table 1 [Tab. 1]). It appears that students prefer common medical problems like alcoholism and contraception. Ethically controversial (scientific) topics like the use of stem cells or prenatal screening are not favored although they are heavily discussed in the public. Interestingly, preventive medicine was not of interest.