Double Helix Curriculum
Mary and George D'Angelo, M.D. '51 Learning Center |
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PROBLEM BASED LEARNING ROOMS AND THE DOUBLE HELIX CURRICULUM
First and foremost, these rooms are unparalleled in
American medical education, in that they represent a unique
learning space in which basic science is learned in a
clinical context and clinical medicine is learned in a
scientific context.
Each Problem Based Learning (PBL) room has a networked computer with CD ROM drive and
printer. Students are prepared for a lifetime of learning
medicine through a curriculum that begins with an
introductory course on "Mastering Medical Information." This
course introduces students to information management,
critical reading of the literature, and evidence-based
medicine. In the second semester, students begin a
longitudinal primary care clerkship during which can apply
information gathering and review skills learned during the
MMI course to problems that arise as students care for their
own patients.
While modern technology will include the viewing of
educational videos in every room, the focus of problem-based
learning (PBL) is perhaps best captured by the three large
marker boards in each room. In PBL, the teacher is more a
facilitator of learning than an "expert knowledge
dispenser," and it is the students who go to the board to
work through hypotheses and frame their own learning goals
for self study between each small group session. In the
second course of the curriculum, "Human Structure and
Function" (illustrated here), students are learning the
anatomy, histology, embryology, and physiology of each organ
system of the body as they simultaneously learn to perform
the relevant parts of the clinical physical exam on
patients.
While an increasing number of medical schools have been
building PBL rooms as shown on the left or clinical skills
training rooms as shown on the right, these educational
spaces are unique in that they combine both of these types
of learning environments. The clinical side of each PBL room
includes (a) an examining table, (b) wall-mounted clinical
equipment, (c) a sink and medical supply cabinet, (d) a
built-in recording microphone for audio-visual link (see
 ),
(e) a curtain that may simulate a more private office for
clinical exercises, and (f) an x-ray view box linking both
clinical and basic science issues students encounter in
their weekly PBL cases.
The boat-shaped conference table in each room facilitates
small group discussion. The legs are hollow for wires
running into the center power/data-link/audio strip. This
power strip has built-in power and data links for laptop
computers to access the World Wide Web. It also has multiple
recording microphones along its length to pick-up sound from
all PBL participants for use when the audiovisual link is
being used for the camera on the "seminar" side of the room.
Through intense scientific discussion of real patient cases
from week one, students not only learn basic science in the
clinical context most relevant for retrieving information,
but also learn the importance of teamwork from the start of
their medical training.
Each PBL room has two built-in video cameras (only one shown
above) to capture either side of the room, shown in the
schematic to the right. Each PBL room is linked to one of
the 12 carousels in a unique Teaching and Learning
Laboratory (TLL), where each carousel is equipped with a
computer and screen that doubles as a monitor or VCR. In the
TLL, students may improve clinical skills by watching
themselves with patients or focus on team learning issues by
reviewing their own PBL sessions. Faculty may focus on their
clinical teaching or small group facilitation skills by
watching them-selves "in action." Multi-station assessment
can also be done by moving students through different
stations set up in each room in a state-of-the-art Observed
Structured Clinical Exam.
Video angles projected to
linked carousels in Teaching and Learning Laboratory
(TLL):
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