Abstract

Student perceptions of educational effectiveness and relative cost of two strategies for teaching sensitive exam skills

Author(s): Sharon Allen, Jane Miller, Krista Skorupa, Scott Lunos

Objectives: Since limited access to patients and burden for clinical teaching faculty have led to new models for teaching pelvic exams, the objective of this study was to determine the impact of two different instructional teaching strategies of the pelvic exam. Specifically we compared relative cost and assessed and compared students’ perceptions of the two models and perceived readiness for performing pelvic exams.

Design: A 3 hour required pelvic exam skills workshop in year two medical school was conducted with two educational strategies due to budget constraints: Cohort A “no hands-on” had faculty led practice on a table top model followed by faculty demonstration of a pelvic exam; Cohort B “hands-on” had faculty led table top experience followed by performance of a pelvic exam on a Patient Educator (PE).