The Tale of Designing a Clinical-Cases Manual for Rotations and Mixed Methods Analysis of Students' Participatory...

The post-pandemic era ignited the concepts of virtual learning, enhancing a strong need for a specific clinical case manual of commonly encountered scenarios in internal medicine. In this article, we describe the process for creating a clinical cases manual which can be followed for any other clinical science. Further, we report the participatory experience of students in the co-creation of manual.

The hand-written notes of the teacher during the rotation of internal medicine were improvised, and created into a digital version. The editorial team which included mainly student volunteers participated in digitization and reviewing the content, diagrams and flowcharts. We describe the process of designing the clinical-cases manual for rotations in internal medicine, which includes handwritten notes, review of the notes, formation of editorial team, digitization of text and artwork, editing and book release. It can be replicated for any other clinical sciences in rotations. In addition, the online survey with both quantitative and qualitative type of questions was used to assess the students' participatory experiences in co-creating manual.

The clinical-cases manual for rotations in internal medicine was released and received well. The online survey responses revealed that the participating students benefited in terms of professional and personal development. There was an inter-item statistical difference implying that all the participants were agreeing or strongly agreeing to survey questions. All participants agreed on the usefulness of the manual. The main themes identified through qualitative analysis were technical skills acquisition, lifelong learning and teaching, self-assessment, discipline, time management, teamwork and communication skills.

The creation of a clinical case manual for rotation, specific to the local needs can be done through a systematic process, that can be enriched by involving students. Encouraging the participation of students in co-creation is an important academic exercise that contributes to professional and personal development.