Feasibility and sustainability of an interactive team-based learning method for medical education during a severe faculty shortage in Zimbabwe

BMC Medical Education

Eva M Aagaard¹  Margaret Z Borok¹  James G Hakim¹  Thomas B Campbell¹  Golden T Fana¹  Jacob Gray² 

[1] NECTAR MEPI Program, Department of Medicine, College of Health Sciences, University of Zimbabwe, P.O. Box A178, Avondale, Harare, Zimbabwe;Alaska Native Medical Center, 4000 Diplomacy Drive, Anchorage, AK 99508, USA

关键词: HIV;    MEPI;    NECTAR;    Medical education;    Resource-limited;    TBL;    Team-based learning;   

Others  :  1118127
DOI  :  10.1186/1472-6920-14-63

 received in 2013-11-20, accepted in 2014-03-20,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

In 2010, in the midst of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) epidemic in Zimbabwe, 69% of faculty positions in the Department of Medicine of the University of Zimbabwe College of Health Sciences (UZ-CHS) were vacant. To address the ongoing need to train highly skilled HIV clinicians with only a limited number of faculty, we developed and implemented a course for final-year medical students focused on HIV care using team-based learning (TBL) methods.

Methods

A competency-based HIV curriculum was developed and delivered to final-year medical students in 10 TBL sessions as part of a 12 week clinical medicine attachment. A questionnaire was administered to the students after completion of the course to assess their perception of TBL and self-perceived knowledge gained in HIV care. Two cohorts of students completed the survey in separate academic years, 2011 and 2012. Descriptive analysis of survey results was performed.

Results

Ninety-six of 120 students (80%) completed surveys. One hundred percent of respondents agreed that TBL was an effective way to learn about HIV and 66% strongly agreed. The majority of respondents agreed that TBL was more stimulating than a lecture course (94%), fostered enthusiasm for the course material (91%), and improved teamwork (96%). Students perceived improvements in knowledge gained across all of the HIV subjects covered, especially in challenging applied clinical topics, such as management of HIV antiretroviral failure (88% with at least a “large improvement”) and HIV-tuberculosis co-infection (80% with at least a “large improvement”).

Conclusions

TBL is feasible as part of medical education in an African setting. TBL is a promising way to teach challenging clinical topics in a stimulating and interactive learning environment in a low-income country setting with a high ratio of students to teachers.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Gray et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

Figure 1.

Figure 2.

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