- College of Medicine Faculty News
It’s like the Netflix of learning. Online learning videos are becoming a preferred choice for teaching as they give students the flexibility of learning wherever and whenever they want to, says Dr. Martin Klapheke, assistant dean for medical education and professor of psychiatry. This is why Dr. Klapheke and a team of faculty from other medical schools across the country collaborated to create a national database of online learning modules to be used in teaching psychiatry to medical students.
One such module on neurocognitive disorders recently earned Dr. Klapheke a national award from the Association of Directors of Medical Student Education in Psychiatry (ADMSEP).
The annual ADMSEP MedEdPORTAL Award recognizes outstanding publications – innovative curricula, evaluation tools and other educational materials — submitted to and appearing on the Association of American Medical Colleges’ MedEdPORTAL site – an online resource for medical educators.
Dr. Klapheke was presented with the award at the ADMSEP national conference in Kansas City, Missouri last month.
This is his second such award from ADMSEP, having won in 2011 for a similar learning module he produced that year. Dr. Klapheke also won the ADMSEP 2013 Innovations Award for his leadership of a Clinical Simulation Initiative (CSI), a taskforce that provides a free national database of online psychiatric teaching cases. Dr. Klapheke, who is a co-founder of CSI, helped initiate the process of developing online videos that teach medical students about mental health issues such as depression, dementia, delirium and bipolar disorder.
“In 2010, myself and some colleagues at other med schools decided to put together a free national database of online teaching modules for psychiatry,” Dr. Klapheke explained, noting that several other disciplines already had similar national databases, but with modules for purchase. “So we decided to do it for psychiatry, but make it free.”
The peer-reviewed modules are available for free download on MedEdPORTAL, and are hosted on ADMSEP’s server for free web access by medical educators. Dr. Klapheke’s module on dementia and delirium has received thousands of hits and downloads by educators in over 16 countries.
The modules teach students to evaluate cognitive dysfunctions, formulate treatment plans, give support to caregivers and monitor safety issues such as driving.
“It frees up their time so they can do some of this stuff independently,” said Dr. Klapheke. “It’s almost a move toward on-demand learning. Instead of saying ‘I’ve got to wait until 2 o’ clock on Tuesday to listen to Dr. Klapheke talk for four hours, I can do these modules on my own. I’ll do one on Saturday night or Sunday morning, on my time, when I want.’”
“It’s very user friendly, it’s affordable, they can watch it at home or wherever they want. It makes it (the disorder) come alive for the students, because they’re not only reading about evaluating these disorders, they’re seeing it done. They get to see the patient, his face, his movements, and then see what the doctor does in response and so it engages the student in a way that reading and textbooks cannot. It gives them exposure to disorders in a way that it is brought to life.”
The module first presents didactics on the disorder. This is followed by a series of video clips, filmed at College of Medicine’s Clinical Skills and Simulation Center, showing simulated interviews with a standardized patient (actor) who was briefed on the cognitive disorders he would be presenting and their symptoms. At the end of the module, students take a quiz to test what they have learned.
“The students like very much the fact that it is active,’ Dr. Klapheke added. “Instead of me standing there and lecturing at them for four hours, I encourage them to do the module at home, and in class we apply what they have learned to other cases.”
Dr. Klapheke says the award was a tribute to the UCF College of Medicine and its efforts to provide innovative and active learning opportunities for students.
He credited Dale Voorhees and the rest of the medical school’s Educational Technology team for their assistance with producing the learning module.
“I think it’s a feather in the cap for the College of Medicine and for everyone who was part of this.”