PBL

[Junito]

Is it true that Ross is the only carib school that uses Problem Based Learning? I found my first experience to be a good one. I looked at various US med school curriculums, and I see that PBL is a big thing for US Schools. Our group has Mrs. Lambert. How has your experience with PBL been?

Juni

[oc23]

pbl can be great if you have the right facilitator and group members. i think it's best if your facilitator is an md so he would actually know what you're talking about. some professors make good facilitators too. the group members have to get along too. i loved my 1st semester pbl group. i had dr. sanford and we all got along really well. it was perfect! my 2nd semester group was horrible because, although the facilitator was good, the students were indifferent to each other. 3rd semester was just ok. frankly, i didn't learn anything from 2nd and 3rd semester pbl...but i still remember everything from 1st semester pbl.

without a good facilitator and members that get along, pbl is useless.

[MD3s]

this is off the subject a bit, but a new thing coming up in U.S. schools is system based learning. IMHO i think that subject and problem based learning is more superior because you learn the fundametals at depth, and focus with solving problems. learning the systems will naturally occur in your 3rd and 4th years. another thing that i think should stay the same is the way people are writing their progress notes. system based learning is producing these system assessment and plans which are more vague and less focused and mroe difficult to bill for. i think that it should stay the samewith the problem based approach with the assessment and plan stating: 1. CHF, 2. Pnemonia, 3. Anemia instead of cardio, pulmonary, Heme with the plans following. call me conservative but i think that starting with the systems from year 1 is too early and should be implemented later in medical school once the fundamentals have been learned. do your physical exam in a system approach to put things together, but your assessment and plan should state each and every problem and what you are going to do about it. it also makes it much easier for other people to read the notes. any other opinions?

[bevo]

pbl is so hit or miss here. I had pretty good experiences 1st and 2nd semester. 2nd semester probably being the best and where I learned the most.

3rd was by far the worst. Hated my pbl instructor. He spent more time lecturing us than letting us learn and go our direction and make our own mistakes.

Only time I dreaded going to pbl was 3rd semester.

[MD777]

Hello, Juni,

what is the content of PBL or Sys BL? i need some further explanation from you and/or other seniors from Ross.

thank you in advance.

[spatel0434]

I agree with oc23 in that your pbl experience depends largely on the facilitator and your group members. Not only that, but it also depends on your own personal participation. I have friends that went in thinking that pbl was a waste of time, didn't participate, and of course for them, pbl was worthless. But if you participate, I think you can still actually gain a lot from it, even with a terrible facilitator and group.

I was lucky to have great facilitators and group members in both 1st and 2nd semester. But in 3rd semester, I had the double whammy. Bad facilitator and indifferent group members. So, the experience wasn't as good. Not only that, but I felt that in 3rd semester the cases weren't very good. So, that also took something away. They should seriously consider writing new 3rd semester cases.

[Junito]

MD777,
PBL (problem based learning) is a philosphy or better yet a teaching style. Students are given a problem and the group will discuss the issues and try to come up with an answer. Each PBL problem last for 3 (or was it 4) weeks. Each consecutive week the group is given new information about the problem. The PBL session is supposed to correlate with what the students are learning in classes. Now I have never heard of the systems based learning.

Juni

[spatel0434]

As far as I know systems based learning goes like this:

From day 1, year 1 you learn the whole body by systems (i.e. cardiovascular, respiratory, renal, gi, etc...). So lets say you start with cardiovascular system. In that block, you would learn all the biochemistry/genetics, anatomy, physiology, pathology, micro, and pharm related to the cardiovascular system, all at the same time. Then, you move on to the next system and do the same and so on. I personally think it is a bad idea.

As mentioned previously, you first need to have solid fundamental knowledge. And that is what first and second semester and maybe even third semester is about at Ross. Then, fourth semester is where they are now really trying to start integrating things in a system fashion. For example, the first two weeks we did cardiovascular system. So we learned the path, micro, and pharm that related to the cardiovascular system and in ICM we learned how to do the cardiovascular examination. Now we've moved on to the respiratory system.