Using a popular autobiography as a teaching tool: medical students’ perceptions

Dear Sir

After successful utilization of Lance Armstrong's autobiography to teach clinical pharmacology to a small group of nursing students (Mathibe 2007), we assessed its usefulness among a larger group of medical students. The research took place over the period of two successive years (2006 and 2007), involving third-year medical students enrolled for the Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery (MBChB) degree at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine, South Africa).

General learning objectives as well as copies of selected chapters (4, 5 and 6) of the autobiography were given to the students at the beginning of the lectures. During the first 45 min of the lecture; willing students were requested to read certain sections of the autobiography, for the whole class, to draw attention to the names and regimens of cytotoxic drugs; side effects; investigation procedures; the role of team work in cancer management; health related quality of life and holistic health care. For the remaining 45 min the lecturer used a didactic teaching method (prepared using scientific therapeutics literature) to explain and expand on issues discussed during the autobiography-reading sessions.

Self-administered originally constructed questionnaires with statements graded on 5-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 2 = disagree; 3 = neutral; 4 = agree and 5 = strongly agree) and open-ended questions (qualitative measures) were used to assess students’ perceptions. Ethical permission, as well as copyright for making copies from the autobiography, was obtained from the University's Bio-Ethics committee.

Total of 259 (91% response) students completed and returned the questionnaires. Majority (90%) of participants ‘agreed’ that the exercise stimulated their interest in cancer drugs and 85% felt that the exercise was a valuable use of their time. Ninety-one percent of female and 78% of males ‘agreed’ that the ‘exercise was a valuable use’ of their time and difference (13%) was statistically significant (p < 0.008). Younger students (≤21 years old) were in favour of the use of the autobiography more (p = 0.035) than other age groups (21–25 and ≥26 years old). There were statistically significant (p = 0.03) results between males and females regarding their preference of the use of a popular autobiography over the ‘didactic’ teaching method; with females preferring the use of a popular autobiography over the ‘didactic’ teaching method than males.

The autobiography, as a teaching method, was more appealing to younger (<21 years old) students as compared to the older ones. This discovery augurs well for implementation of this teaching method in early years of medical education.