Live patients and problem-based learning

Abstract

Problem-based learning (PBL) begins with a description of an event from which a group of students define one or several problems to be solved. That part of the process is in many ways similar to how a doctor works with his/her patients. More often than not the description is a written case history. In clinical courses, the PBL process can be enhanced by asking a real patient with a real condition to be interviewed and examined by the students at the start of the PBL process. How this approach is used in a course of general surgery is described and the results reported in terms of the degree of satisfaction on the part of students, teachers and patients.