Medical students gather at Virtual Clinic for problem-based learning on the Web

UW third-year medical students training at distant family medicine sites across a five-state region regularly report to the Red, Blue or Yellow Clinic. These are not actual patient-care settings, but divisions of a Web-based Virtual Clinic, a new learning tool for medical students. The students, often separated by hundreds of miles, meet online at the Virtual Clinic to work together on a case study.

The students participate in the Virtual Clinic while training in Anchorage and Wrangell, Alaska; Boise and Pocatello, Idaho; Havre and Whitefish, Mont., Buffalo and Powell, Wyo.; and Anacortes, Bremerton, Olympia, Omak, Renton, Seattle, Spokane, Tacoma, and Yakima, Wash.

The current case study explores end-of-life care as well as the patient's and providers' spiritual beliefs. Future discussions will include the changing U.S. health-care system and additional case topics.

The clerkship students join the online discussion at least three times a week. On Fridays, students get an update on the patient's status and new issues the patient has posed. An attending physician monitors the discussion. However, the students largely teach each other by presenting information they've discovered and by suggesting points to ponder. This type of educational approach is called problem-based learning.

Because experts frequently disagree on what should be done for a patient, the case studies don't have right or wrong answers. The aim of the Virtual Clinic is to encourage students to problem-solve in the context of a common patient situation. When the clinic closes at the end of a three-week session, the faculty tutor summarizes his or her own recommendations.

The Virtual Clinic was established by UW family physician Dr. Tom Greer, associate professor of family medicine, and medical educator Dr. Patricia Stern. Dr. Stu Farber, assistant professor of family medicine and an expert on palliative care, authored the case study.

Several ideas from three student focus groups have been incorporated into the Virtual Clinic. In February the Virtual Clinic will be evaluated as part of a UW class on useability testing of Web sites.

A UW Tools for Transformation grant funds the Virtual Clinic. ¶

Leila Gray