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Digital case-library and dual-mentor teaching for medical laboratory science internships in China: a historical
Yawen Ding1, Hong Zhang2, Weixuan Zhang1
1Department of Laboratory Medicine (East), The Fourth Hospital of Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, Hebei, China.
Background:
Medical laboratory science internships often rely on fragmented rotation-based placements, limiting opportunities to connect laboratory results with clinical decision-making, quality-control reasoning and communication with clinicians. We evaluated the feasibility, acceptability and associated outcomes of a digital case-library-based dual-mentor teaching model.
Methods:
This single-centre retrospective historical controlled educational evaluation, not a randomised trial, included 36 interns from 2022 to 2023 who received routine rotation-based teaching and 30 interns from 2024 to 2025 who completed 10 structured digital case-library sessions. Clinical mentors introduced disease context and decision points; laboratory mentors guided test selection, result interpretation, quality-control reasoning and communication. Outcomes included archived historical records and questionnaires, intervention pre-post self-rated core competency, process indicators, blinded double-marked unseen-case objective assessment, mentor ratings and open-ended feedback.
Results:
Sixty-six interns were analysed. Sex distribution and grade point average strata did not differ significantly between groups. In the historical group, only 8.3% reported that routine rotations helped them link laboratory findings with clinical care, and no students reported enough case discussion or direct clinician communication. In the intervention group, 29 students had valid paired self-rating data; self-rated core-competency total increased from 14.62 ±3.18 to 38.55 ±4.19/55, with a mean gain of 23.93 points (95% CI 22.38-25.48; Wilcoxon W = 435.0, p < 0.001; r = 0.87). Attendance was 299/300 student-sessions. The blinded double-marked objective total averaged 85.50 ± 2.16/100, with good average-measure rater agreement [ICC(2, k) = 0.82, 95% CI 0.72-0.86]. End-of-placement self-rated core competency was higher in the intervention group than in the historical group (mean difference 2.86, 95% CI 0.50-5.21; p = 0.007; Hedges g = 0.58, 95% CI 0.14-1.10), whereas routine exit marks did not differ significantly.
Conclusion:
The model was feasible and well accepted. Findings suggest an associative trend in perceived competency development with preliminary convergent evidence, but causal interpretation is limited by retrospective approval, non-random historical comparison, absent historical baseline measurements and reliance on self-rated outcomes.
