<p>Using team-based revision to prepare medical students for the prescribing safety assessment</p>

Abstract

Background The Prescribing Safety Assessment (PSA) is an online assessment of safe and effective prescribing, taken by final-year UK medical students. To prepare students for the PSA, we used a modified form of team-based learning, team-based revision (TBR), in which students consolidate previously learned prescribing knowledge and skills across a broad range of topics. We evaluated students’ response to TBR and their perceptions of team working. Methods Eight TBR sessions based on the PSA blueprint were conducted over two days by three faculty members for final year medical students. During TBR sessions, students worked in small groups answering individual multiple-choice questions, followed by group multiple-choice questions. They subsequently answered open-ended questions in their groups, with answers written on a drug chart to increase authenticity. Students completed surveys using Likert-type items to determine views on TBR and their confidence in prescribing. Results The majority of respondents agreed that the sessions were useful for preparation both for the PSA (82%) and Foundation Year 1 (78%). 92% agreed that using drug-charts aided learning. Prescribing confidence increased significantly after TBR (median pre-TBR: 2, post-TBR: 5, p <0.0001). TBR significantly improved attitudes towards “team experience” ( p <0.001), “team impact on quality of learning” ( p <0.01) and “team impact on clinical reasoning ability” ( p <0.001). Conclusions Team-based revision is a resource-efficient addition to undergraduate prescribing teaching and can help with preparation for the PSA. A short course of TBR was effective in influencing students’ attitudes towards teamwork.

An Interprofessional Senior Medical Student Preparation Course: Improvement in Knowledge and Self-Confidence Before Entering Surgical Training

“… 31 , 41 Our course also emphasizes the importance of instilling competence and confidence in medical students to safely prescribe medications, an area also recognized by other surgical educators. 42 We incorporated hospital-based pharmacists into our faculty as interprofessional educators to assist our medical students to review the safety aspects of the medical prescription process.…”

Educational Interventions for Medical Students to Improve Pharmacological Knowledge and Prescribing Skills: A Scoping Review

“…There was a mix of study designs, including eight randomised controlled trials [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27], nine comparative studies [28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36], six prospective studies [37][38][39][40][41][42], 12 before and after studies [43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54], five mixed-method evaluation studies [55][56][57][58][59], five crossover studies [60][61][62][63][64], five quasiexperimental studies [65][66][67][68][69] and four cross-sec...…”

<p>How effective is team-based revision? An insight from medical students [Letter]</p>

“…We read with great interest the study by Field et al1 regarding the use of team-based revision (TBR) for final year medical students in preparation for their Prescribing Safety Assessment. The results seemed to be encouraging for the wider implementation of TBR in medical schools, particularly for students who may benefit from an increase in confidence levels.…”

“…The results seemed to be encouraging for the wider implementation of TBR in medical schools, particularly for students who may benefit from an increase in confidence levels. Although TBR is inspired from the idea of team-based learning, this is the first study of its kind exploring its effectiveness 1…”

“…Although this certainly made the study easier to conduct, we wonder whether this would have preferentially attracted students who feel more comfortable in team-based situations. This could potentially skew the results when students were asked about their attitudes toward “team experience” or “team impact on quality of learning” 1. This effect may have been further compounded when taking into account that only 98 of the 201 students completed both questionnaires.…”