gms | German Medical Science

Introduction: Interactive learning of a large group of students was applied in selected lectures with the aim to optimize the learning environment and to achieve two goals:using modern IT communication technologies and training diagnostic skills.

Material and Methods: 640 students of the 5th year of the undergraduate curriculum at the Medical University of Vienna were enrolled in an interactive seminar that was held weekly. Students were distributed in two lecture halls and in three teaching hospitals. The technical equipment included streaming techniques to deliver the presentations online at all involved sites with the options of bidirectional communication in the form of asking multiple-choice (MC) questions, short answer questions, and oral and written discussions.

Results: 20 grand rounds have been performed to date and the technical equipment proofed to be stable without major breakdowns. All of the offered communication tools were used with MC-questions being regularly integrated in the presentations. USMLE-style questions (United States Medical Licensing Examination) were well accepted by the students (66 % of all votes) and in part by the teachers. Oral and written discussions were less frequently used by the students. Short-answer questions and bidirectional presentations from the remote sites were only scarcely used by both teachers and students. All IT tools were accepted by the teachers with a lower acceptance rate than by the students. Conclusion: Bidirectional e-learning designed in the form of virtual classrooms, or webinars respectively, are suitable for training diagnostic skills in large groups to perform online self-assessment, for enhancing discussions, and for training IT-skills [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6].