Two-dimensional integration approach to teaching cardiovascular physiology: effectiveness and students' perspectives

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Physiology Education
• Curriculum Development

Background:

• Traditional pre-clerkship medical curricula often lack inter-organ system integration.
• Integrating organ systems can benefit students during clerkships and future medical careers.
• This study addresses the need for integrated teaching in large pre-clerkship classes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe the implementation of a two-dimensional (2D) integrative teaching approach for pre-clerkship medical students.
• To evaluate student perspectives on this novel teaching methodology.
• To compare the effectiveness of the 2D integrative approach against traditional lecture-based teaching.

Main Methods:

• A 2D-integrative teaching method was applied to 309 medical students studying cardiovascular physiology.
• Integration involved incorporating other organ systems' physiology and diverse teaching strategies (discussions, presentations, quizzes).
• Student attitudes were assessed via questionnaires, and summative scores evaluated content comprehension.

Main Results:

• Over 81.9% of students reported positive attitudes towards the integrative teaching sessions.
• Students felt the method enhanced basic and applied physiology knowledge, critical thinking, and teamwork skills.
• Students in the 2D-integrative class achieved higher summative exam scores (74.4%) compared to lecture-based learning (65.2%).

Conclusions:

• Two-dimensional (2D) integrative teaching strategies are feasible and effective for large pre-clerkship medical classes.
• Positive student feedback and improved academic performance support the integration of this comprehensive teaching method.
• This approach is particularly suitable for complex topics within medical curricula.