Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To address the need for women’s health education by designing, implementing, and evaluating a self-study, web-based women’s health curriculum.
DESIGN: Cohort of students enrolled in the embulatory portion of the medicine clerkship with comparison group of students who had not yet completed this rotation.
PARTICIPANTS/SETTING: Third- and fourth-year medical students on the required medicine clerkship (115 students completed the curriculum; 158 completed patient-related logs).
INTERVENTION: Following an extensive needs assessment and formulation of competencies and objectives, we developed a web-based women’s health curriculum completed during the ambulatory portion of the medicine clerkship. The modules were case based and included web links, references, and immediate feedback on posttesting. We discuss technical issues with implementation and maintenance.
MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: We evaluated this curriculum using anonymous questionnaires, open-ended narrative comments, online multiple-choice tests, and personal digital assistant (PDA) logs of patient-related discussions of women’s health. Students completing the curriculum valued learning women’s health, preferred this self-directed learning over lecture, scored highly on knowledge tests, and were involved in more and higher-level discussions of women’s health with faculty (P<.001).
CONCLUSIONS: We present a model for the systematic design of a web-based women’s health curriculum as part of a medicine clerkship. The web-based instruction resolved barriers associated with limited curriculum time and faculty availability, provided an accessible and standard curriculum, and met the needs of adult learners (with their motivation to learn topics they value and apply this knowledge in their daily work). We hypothesize that our web-based curriculum spurred students to later-discuss these topics with faculty. Web-based learning may be particularly suited for women’s health because of its multi-disciplinary nature and need for vertical integration throughout medical school curricula.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Donoghue GD, ed. Women’s Health in the Curriculum: A Resource Guide for Faculty. Philadephia, PA: National Academy on Women’s Health Medical Education; 1996:14–30, 31–35, 40–51.
Magrane DM, McIntyre-Seltman K. Women’s health care for medical students: an educational proposal. Womens Health Issues. 1996;6:183–91.
Macdante K, Simpson D, Duthie E. Weaving a geriatrics curriculum through a four year curriculum. Acad Med. 2001;76:526–7.
Billings JA, Ferris FD, Macdonald N, Von unten C. Hospice Home Care Working Group. The role of palliative care in the home in medical education: report from a national consensus conference. J Palliat Med. 2001;4:361–71.
Brill JR, Jackson TC, Stearns MA. Community medicine in action: an integrated, fourth-year urban continuity preceptorship. Acad Med. 2002;77:739.
Levison SP, Weiss LB, Puglia CD, Nieman LZ, Donoghue GD. A model for integrating women’s health issues into a problem-based curriculum. J Womens Health. 1998;7:1113–24.
Magrane D, Ephgrave K, Jacobs MB, Rusch R. Weaving women’s health across clinical clerkships. Acad Med. 2000;75:1066–70.
Nicolette J, Jacobs MB. Integration of women’s health into an internal medicine core curriculum for medical students. Acad Med. 2000;75:1061–5.
Weiss LB, Levison SP. Tools for integrating women’s health into medical education: clinical cases and concept mapping. Acad Med. 2000;75:1081–6.
Henrich JB. Women’s health education initiatives: why have they stalled? Acad Med. 2004;79:283–8.
Kwolek DS, Witzke D, Sloan DA. Assessing the need for faculty development in women’s health among internal medicine and family practice teaching faculty. The Women’s Health Education Working Group (WHEWG). J Womens Health Gend Based Med. 1999;8:1195–201.
Youngblood P, Stringer J, Moreneo E. Development and formative evaluation of a logitudinal web-based nutrition curriculum. Acad Med. 2000;75:540.
Sandlow LJ, York JW, Hammett WH. Development of a web-based GME core curriculum. Acad Med. 2000;75:547.
Embi PJ, Bowen JL, Singer E. A web-based curriculum to improve residents’ education in outpatient medicine. Acad Med. 2001;75:545.
Leong SL, Balwin CD, Adelman AM. Integrating web-based computer cases into a required clerkship: development and evaluation. Acad Med. 2003;78:295–301.
Sakowski HA, Rich EC, Turner PD. Web-based case simulations for a primary care clerkship. Acad Med. 2001;75:547.
Kaelber DC, Bierer SB, Carter JR. A web-based clinical curriculum on the cardiac exam. Acad Med. 2001;76:548–9.
Rawn C, Davidon R, Meier A. Using web-based case presentations to supplement a surgery clerkship curriculum. Acad Med. 2000;75:540.
Hallgren RC, Parkhurst PE, Monson CL, Crewe NM. An interactive, web-based tool for learning anatomic landmarks. Acad Med. 2002;77:263–5.
Treadwell I, deWitt TW, Grobler S. The impact of a new educational strategy on acquiring neonatology skills. Med Educ. 2002;36:441–8.
Shomaker TS, Ricks DJ, Hale DC. A prospective, randomized controlled study of computer-assisted learning in parasitology. Acad Med. 2002;77:446–9.
Bell DS, Fonarow GC, Hays RD, Mangione CM. Self-study from web-based and printed guideline materials: a randomized, controlled trial among resident physicians. Ann Intern Med. 2000;132:938–46.
Sanders JR. The Program Evaluation Standards, 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications; 1994.
Autry AM, Meurer LN, Barnabei VM, et al. A longitudinal women’s health curriculum: a multi-methods needs assessment. Am J Obstet Gynecol. 2002;187:S12-S14.
LaRosa JH, Alexander LL. Women’s Health Research. Report prepared for the U.S. Public Health Service’s Office on Women’s Health. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; 1998.
Structure and functions of a medical school. Published by the AMMA/AAMC Liason Committee on Medical Education (LCME). Available at: http://www.lcme.org. Accessed May 2004.
Cassel CK, Blank LL, Braunstein GD, et al. What internists need to know: core competencies in women’s health. Am J Med. 1997;102:507–12.
Kern DE, Thomas PA, Howard DM, Bass EB. Curriculum Development for Medical Education: A Six-step Approach. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press; 1998:28–37.
Case SM, Swanson DB. Constructing Written Test Questions for the Basic and Clinical Sciences, 3rd ed. Philadelphia, PA: National Board of Medical Examiners; 2001: 13–8, 51–66, 111–4.
Livingston SA, Zieky MJ. Passing Scores: A Manual for Setting Standards of Performance on Educational and Occupational Tests. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service; 1982.
Miles MB, Huberman AM. Qualitative Data Analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications; 1995.
Alder M, Johnson K. Quantifying the literature of computer-aided instruction in medical education. Acad Med. 2000;75:1025–8.
Friedman R. Top ten reasons the world wide web may fail to change medical education. Acad Med. 1996;71:979–81.
Chumley-Jones HS, Dobbie A, Alford CL. Web-based learning: sound educational method or hype? A review of the evaluation literature. Acad Med. 2002;77:S86-S93.
Knox AB. Helping Adults Learn. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass; 1987.
Autry AM, Simpson DE, Bragg DS, et al. Personal digital assistant for “real time” assessment of women’s health in the clinical years. Am J Obstet Gynecol. 2002;187:S19-S21.
Bower DJ, Bertling CJ. Using Palm Pilots as a teaching tool during a primary care clerkship. Advanced Education Group. Acad Med. 2000;75:541–2.
Torre DM, Wright SM. Clinical and educational uses of handheld computers. South Med J. 2003;96:947–8.
Lipman AJ, Sade RM, Glotzbach AL, Lancaster CJ, Marshall MF. The incremental value of Internet-based instruction as an adjunct to classroom instruction: a prospective randomized study. Acad Med. 2001;76:1060–4.
Thiele JE, Allen C, Stucky M. Effects of Web-based instruction on learning behaviors of undergraduate and graduate students. Nurs Health Care Perspect. 1999;20:199–203.
Woo MA, Kimmick JV. Comparison of Internet versus lecture instructional methods for teaching nursing research. J Prof Nurs. 2000;16:132–9.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
There are no conflicts of interest by the authors.
This project was partially supported by a Learning Resources Grant from the Medical College of Wisconsin.
JGIM Abstract:
Zebrack JR, Mitchell JL, Davids SL, Keating-Christensen C. A women’s health web-site for learners at multiple levels. J Gen Intern Med. 2002;17:104.
Mitchell JL, Zebrack JR, Davids SL, Keating-Christensen C, Simpson DE. Students’ use of and satisfaction with e-based instruction: experience with an online women’s health curriculum. J Gen Intern Med. 2003;18:249–50.
Zebrack JR, Mitchell JL, Davids SL, Bragg D. The impact of an on-line women’s health curriculum on OSCE skills and clinical teaching encounters. J Gen Intern Med. 2003;18:260.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zebrack, J.R., Mitchell, J.L., Davids, S.L. et al. Web-based curriculum. J GEN INTERN MED 20, 68–74 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1525-1497.2005.40062.x
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1525-1497.2005.40062.x