Blended learning: An innovative teaching strategy to teach dermatology to the family medicine residents of a teaching hospital.

Context: Medical educators face different challenges in this digital era with the pressure for clinical practice as well as teaching. In blended learning Internet technologies are used along with face-to-face teaching to deliver learning methodologies.

Objective: To assess the efficacy of the blended learning dermatology course on Family Medicine residents at a teaching hospital. Methodology: It was interventional (pre and post) study with purposive sampling. All the Family Medicine residents enrolled at The Aga Khan University Hospital participated in the study after giving consents. The course covered most common skin conditions. Multiple slide sessions, online lectures, clinical presentations, case-based scenarios, and quizzes were included in the course. Knowledge was assessed through pre- test by multiple choice questions. Post tests were taken after completion of the modules to assess the improvement in the knowledge of residents about basic dermatological conditions by multiple choice questions. After completion of sessions a survey questionnaire was administered to evaluate the perception of participants about blended learning strategy.

Results: The tests scores were significantly higher in the post test. The majority of the residents were satisfied with the course delivery. A statistically significant difference was found between pre and post test results with a P value 0.000.

Conclusions and recommendation: Blended learning is an effective and innovative teaching strategy that helped family medicine residents to enhance their learning more effectively. We recommend that this method of teaching strategy should be used in other clinical disciplines in different contexts.didifferent contexts.