[A case-study in bed-side teaching of clinical laboratory medicine]

In Akita Medical School, a new curriculum on clinical undergraduate education has started since June 1997. The Department of Clinical and Laboratory Medicine had two-weeks practice by small groups of medical students. We introduced a case-study in the practice with a general instructional objective and specific behavioral objectives for students to understand more the clinico-pathological process of diseases. A patient for primary hypothyroidism with chronic renal failure was chosen as the case, which had been found based on the abnormality on essential laboratory tests. The reversed-CPC was carried out to make a diagnosis with the patient's history and clinical examinations, and then the clinico-pathological process for the patient was re-checked, discussed and explained by students for themselves. They felt harder to see how abnormal data were related to diseases, according to their own evaluation of the practice. The further education for the patho-physiology of diseases and the logic of the test combination will be required.