Computer assisted teaching program: a pulmonary patient management problem.

The use of computer assisted teaching in medical school could be a valuable adjunct to the more traditionally employed backboard and slides. A computer program based upon a pulmonary patient management simulation was developed to teach and assess pulmonary management skills of junior medical students. Over the period of 18 months, 39 medical students taking their internal medicine rotation at a core teaching hospital used the program. The scores ranged from 45 to 100 with a mean of 74.9%. The participants were awarded points for good clinical decisions and were penalized points for poor clinical decisions. Student evaluation of the program was highly encouraging supporting the value of computer assisted teaching. When the clinical simulation program was used in our learning resource laboratory, it promoted a high level of student-computer interaction and facilitated problem based learning. Our computer assisted teaching program using a pulmonary patient problem as its core was a valuable tool for self assessment and independent study of pulmonary medicine and it effectively complemented traditional modes of teaching medical education.