Assessing Third-Year Medical Students' Perspective on Point of Care Testing Boot Camp: From Bench to Bedside

Point-of-care testing (POCT), which is also known as bed side-testing, has been integrated into the healthcare system, offering faster results that can lead to improved patient outcomes. POCT was missing from the medical education curriculum in our institute.

The primary objective of this study was to describe the development and introduce POCT training for medical students in a medical college in Pakistan.Secondary objectives were to evaluate student performance on POCT content and to assess the impact of POCT training via students' feedback.

The boot camp experience was devised, directed, and facilitated by team constituting of Chemical Pathology faculty members, laboratory technologists and teaching assistants. The program included presentations, demonstrations of POCT instrument handling, supervised hands-on individual performance on glucometer using quality control specimens, competency assessment and sign off followed by interactive case-based discussions. A knowledge quiz via Kahoot was administered at the beginning and end of the experience and scores were compared statistically. Online evaluation and feedback were designed via virtual learning environment based on 10 questions regarding the program and methodology using on a five-point Likert Scale. Frequencies were generated and t-tests were employed to determine pre-post differences.

The boot camp was spread over 2 days and ran three hours each day with the third-year medical students class split into two groups (n=80). On knowledge evaluation, the mean group pre and post test scores were 45% and 95% respectively (p-value =< 0.05). On documented structured competency assessment form a score of 95 was achieved by 100% participants. Positive feedback of 4 or more was recorded on the Likert's scale by 100% respondents.

This POCT boot camp experience can be used by other institutions and can be applied at different times during the medical school curriculum and other professional education programs. This bootcamp will be helpful to educate medical students, postgraduate trainees and field workers working in rural areas and in low resource settings to deliver reliable POC tests results. Future research should examine these students' competence in achieving POCT skills when they enter in clinical practice.