Teaching epidemiology of acute diarrheal diseases to medical undergraduates--a new approach

A total of 165 students of first clinical year were taught the epidemiology of acute diarrheal diseases, during three successive years using a detailed lesson plan. The usual didactic lecture was minimised and supplemented by slide shows, and transparencies based on the contents of a handout on the subject distributed to all students a day prior to the class. This was followed by participatory discussions by the students on the diagnosis and management of some case examples presented. A video clip summarising the entire lesson was screened for reinforcement. Feed-back from the students showed that the teaching methodology was rated very good by 41%, and satisfactory by 59%. While 73% of the students mentioned videoclips as a factor favouring their learning, 69% cited the handouts and 49% felt that case discussions were helpful. Objective evaluation of the performance in the sessional test showed that out of 158 students who attended the test, 75% scored above 50% marks, 21% below 50% and the remaining 4% did not attempt that question.