Ricco Cristina, Rao Babar K, Pappert Amy S, Coppola Kristen M
Department of Dermatology, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Somerset, NJ 08873, USA.
Department of Psychiatry, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA.
Healthcare (Basel). 2024 Jul 22;12(14):1453. doi: 10.3390/healthcare12141453.
Skin disease is a significant contributor to the global disease burden, with dermatologic health disparities adding to this burden. Internists, general practitioners, and other medical professionals often manage skin disease with limited exposure to dermatologic education in medical school.
This study evaluated a brief educational intervention for medical students to improve dermatologic knowledge, diagnostic and communication skills, and comfort in performing dermatology-focused physical exams. A secondary focus of the intervention was to promote awareness of skin disease, detection, and prevention for patients with a variety of skin tones.
Sixty-five first through fourth-year students at Rutgers RWJMS participated in a pre-test-post-test within-subject study. Students described images using open-ended responses followed by multiple-choice identification questions. Students watched a one-hour self-paced module created by a licensed dermatologist and completed a follow-up assessment.
At pre-test, descriptions were brief and often inaccurate but significantly improved post-intervention to include descriptors such as primary morphology and demarcation. Accuracy on diagnostic and management questions significantly improved and comfort in advising patients and performing dermatologic exams significantly increased.
A low-cost, brief, self-paced module can augment dermatologic education for medical students while increasing exposure to multiple skin tone presentations of lesions.
皮肤病是全球疾病负担的重要组成部分，皮肤病健康差距加剧了这一负担。内科医生、全科医生和其他医学专业人员在医学院接受的皮肤病学教育有限，却常常要处理皮肤病问题。
本研究评估了一项针对医学生的简短教育干预措施，以提高他们的皮肤病学知识、诊断和沟通技巧，以及进行以皮肤病学为重点的体格检查时的舒适度。该干预措施的第二个重点是提高对各种肤色患者的皮肤病、检测和预防的认识。
罗格斯大学罗伯特伍德约翰逊医学院的65名大一至大四学生参与了一项前后测的自身对照研究。学生们先用开放式回答描述图像，然后回答多项选择题。学生们观看了由一名执业皮肤科医生制作的一小时自主学习模块，并完成了后续评估。
在预测试时，描述简短且往往不准确，但在干预后有显著改善，包括使用如主要形态和边界等描述词。诊断和管理问题的准确性显著提高，为患者提供建议和进行皮肤病检查时的舒适度也显著增加。
一个低成本、简短的自主学习模块可以增强医学生的皮肤病学教育，同时增加对多种肤色皮损表现的接触。
