Practical Lesson in a New Discussion Format – Clinical Case Discussion

Abstract

The exceptional availability of high-tech simulators is not enough to ensure the high quality of practical training of the future medical specialists. The main condition is the use of certain pedagogical technologies that ensure the continuity of the system of practice and improvement of practical skills and preparation for competent professional activity at all stages of the future doctor training. In recent years, there has been a clear trend to improve the methods of simulation technologies in medical education at the undergraduate stage of the future doctors’ training. At the same time, an important direction is the step-by-step analysis of clinical cases followed by an extended discussion (with the elements of debriefing) and the use of additional information in the form of separate information blocks with visualization. Only at this stage it is possible to practice communication skills, to understand the clinical route of the patient, as well as to discuss possible rehabilitation and preventive measures. The aim of this article is to share own experience of the implementation of a highly effective teaching method – the discussion of clinical cases, Clinical Case Discussion (CCD), which promotes the development of deep clinical thinking in students, the ability to practically apply knowledge in various fields of medicine, the performance of the applied differential diagnosis, and the formation of the real tactics of the diagnostic search and/or treatment of a specific patient on the example of this clinical case. Performance of a practical session in the new Clinical Case Discussion (CCD) format promotes the development of clinical thinking, allows students to systematize the material obtained and separate dominant signs (symptoms) from secondary ones, justify the appointment of laboratory and instrumental examination methods, verify the diagnosis and develop a number of rehabilitation measures. Active participation in the discussion of specialists of related specialties (depending on the topic of the clinical case and the primary manifestation of the disease) demonstrates the importance of interdisciplinary interaction and the ability to work in a team. The use in the process of clinical discussion of separate information blocks (with visualization) regarding important symptoms, as well as diseases with which it is necessary to perform differential diagnosis, contributes to analytical thinking, a syndromological systematized approach and the formation of a final diagnosis.