Learning curve of psychomotor skills based on ENT-examination

Objectives:

The acquiring and learnig of psychomotoric skills is without doubt one of the key aspects both during medical studies and becoming a resident physician in surgical departments. That is why this study focuses on students' learning curves in the ENT- examination and further resulting conclusions to teaching.

Methods:

The standardized ENT-examination has been offered for tenth semester students only on four consecutive hands-on training days at the ENT-university-hospital-Dresden. In the end a standardized practical test based on a checklist was taken. To generate the mentioned learning curves 40 students had been additionally tested during the four days.

Results:

Overall a daily increase in points achieved was noticed with a maximum of 68 points. Due to the several steps of the test rhinoscopia posterior and laryngoscopy appear to be the most difficult, since high scores could have only been achieved on the last days. Especially in the beginning students were losing points struggling with the correct positioning of light as well as the chronology of examination steps. Fulfilling the procedures during the time window of six minutes has also been adopted in the last days of training.

Conclusion:

The demanding manual complexity of ENT-examination appears to be excellent for representing learning curves of gaining psychomotoric skills. As improvements in correct single examinations can even be noticed in the beginning of training, exact procedures and in time examination can only be achieved in the end of training due to constant practice. In addition to the above these results supply proper conclusions for leaning other practical skills both for studies and specializations.

Publication History

Publication Date:
18 April 2018 (online)