Медицина/Подготовка медицинских работников в
вузах
Оlenovych O.A.,
Voytkevich N.I.
PECULIARITIES OF EDUCATIONAL PROCESS
ORGANIZATION FOR ENGLISH-SPEAKING STUDENTS AT MEDICAL ESTABLISHMENTS
In modern conditions of «export» of educational services requirements to training of specialists for foreign countries
suppose a teaching level, enabling students to start professional work activity,
practical application of the received knowledge and skills directly after graduation. The search of possible
ways of optimization of educational process, directed towards maximal mastering
of studied material by the students, acquires a special actuality now, meeting,
however, numerous obstacles. The process of
teaching medicine to foreign students is accompanied by difficulties,
mostly connected with their personality traits, differences in cognitive and professional motivation,
national terminal educational objectives.
Since English is not a native language for
our students – foreign citizens, and belongs to another linguistic group as
compared with Arabic, Hindi, etc., some foreign students demonstrate poor
lexical communicative level. Therefore, specific vocabulary, used in the medical
system of terms, is difficult to be assimilated by students-foreigners.
Besides, not all
foreign students possess a proper general and fundamental knowledge on theoretical
bases of medicine. Beginning the study of clinical endocrinology, linked with normal
and pathological anatomy, normal and pathological physiology, pharmacology and
other fundamental theoretical disciplines, foreigners are faced to unknown
terms and notions, that prevents them from adequate understanding of
endocrinology. An initial incompetence in examination
of patients and interpretation
of the revealed symptoms aggravates knowledge deficiency, prolong the time
necessary for perception of profession-oriented information. Trying to improve the situation,
an instructor has to specify phenomena
supposed to be known from junior courses. As a result, an educational process is
unsatisfactory due to the deficiency of time and the planned material is discussed
partially. Being accompanied by the limited amount of educational hours, such
situation excludes all possibility of complete mastering many endocrine nosologies.
The attempts to learn the material by a foreign textbook, brought by the
student, only impair the teaching process due to the differences of
methodological approaches of the native and foreign schools, material and
technical structure of native and foreign health service. A lot of difficulties
occur while discussing the schemes for treatment of endocrinopathies, when
students are offered numerous names of drugs, which are uncommon for them and
won’t be further used in their practice due to the difference of pharmaceutical
practice in other countries. To avoid the overloading of English-speaking
students with unknown terms, we accentuate their attention on common and generally
accepted names of medical ingredients, which constitute the drugs to be studied.
The work of the
Department of Foreign Languages at BSMU is especially valuable in this respect.
The staff of the department, systematizing its working experience and
educational-methodical material, accumulated for the years of work with foreign
students, makes every effort for maximal learning foundations of medical
terminology by English-speaking students. Being integrated into the work of
clinical departments of BSMU, it provides valuable and fruitful training of
foreign students.
Practical
work directly by the patient’s bed envisages the student to present Patient’s
Care Report with interpretation of the
results of hormonal, radioisotopes and roentgenologic methods of research, and
practical training in calculation of diet, drug dose, emergency care in
comatose and crisis states, etc. Subsequent clinical analysis,
supervised by the instructor, with active involvement of all the group and
explanation of made mistakes, promotes
comprehensive mastering and fixing of skills to diagnose and treat
endocrinopathies. At the same time, all above listed stages of practical study
of endocrinology, require not only a long oral dialogue between a
student-foreigner, from one side, and a sick person, instructor and medical
personnel from the other, but conversation at high level of understanding, perfectly
spoken Ukrainian. In the real life, despite of friendly attitude of patients to
students regardless of their racial or national origin, a high-quality
interview between them can’t be carried out because foreigners are not able to
catch the meaning of many words. Instead of receiving vast and valuable
information from the primary source, only a brief visual acquaintance with a
patient and his disease appears. Insufficient quality of subject learning is
the direct consequence of that, as far as a detailed questioning of patient provides no less than 51% of correct diagnosis
and allows an exact range of causative-consequential dominants in case the
patient has several illnesses.
The possibility of adequate preparation to the
practical class is promoted by the methodical instructions on the leading problems
of endocrine pathology, elaborated by the staff of the Department of Internal
medicine and Endocrinology, BSMU. They consist of the list of required practical
skills and abilities, theoretical questions, key terms and recommended literature,
to guide foreign students in study program on the topic, enabling
effective practice-centred learning. The use of visual aids in educational process
(schemes, tables, figures, didactic individual cards) creates favorable
conditions not only for better learning of information, but also for its
comprehensive understanding. In addition, application
of problem-based learning principles enables achievement of a practical educational
purpose through searching for research relevant evidence, analysing, discussing
findings and methods and applying knowledge as appropriate in order to justify
clinical judgement and decision-making. The use of role educational games with
modeling of a certain situation close to students’ professional work (appropriate
clinical scenario) makes
it possible to realize their theoretical and practical training, to develop
clinical thinking improving the quality of work by the patient’s bed in future.
Participation of foreign students in clinical
rounds with the staff of the department, preparation of their reports on
seminars and annual students’ conferences allow them to realize their desire to
be professionally competent, to demonstrate their best national qualities, to
become firmly established, to gain prestige and respect both in the group and
course, as well as to recognise self development needs, to identify
possible
gaps in knowledge of
medicine for future additional learning. That’s why while choosing
the form to demonstrate the activity for every foreign student of the group,
consisting of representatives from different countries, their individual
peculiarities (national, personal, educational) should be considered. Besides,
a stable high educational level of the group will be kept and discipline will
be strengthened by means of constant control of the students’ activity
including estimation of the initial level of their knowledge, comprehensive
learning of the material in the process of education. This control is conducted
either by means of written test or by means of solving clinical assignments,
interpretation of additional examination findings with corresponding
pathological disorders, or by means of oral questioning.
Hopefully, constant mutual search of new forms of
education and improvement of the traditional ones by the Department of Internal
Medicine and Endocrinology and the Department of Foreign Languages, BSMU,
defines further appropriate level of students’ knowledge, stable high rate of
graduates during state examinations which will influence upon the prestige of both
BSMU and Ukrainian medical education in the training of medical personnel.
REFERENCES:
1.
Methodical material of practical classes…
Ed. by prof. L.V. Shkala – Lugansk: LSMU, 2005. – 16 p.
2.
Methodological protocols in endocrinology
/ Ed. by prof. A. Serhienko. – Lviv, 2002. – 44 p.
3.
П.М. Боднар, Г.П. Михальчишин, М.І.
Бобрик. Методичне забезпечення викладання ендокринології для іноземних
студентів // Международный эндокринологический журнал. – 2006. – 2(4). – С.
101-105.
4.
Актуальні проблеми
підготовки фахівців у вищих медичних та фармацевтичному навчальних закладах
України: Матеріали науково-методичної конференції (Чернівці, 20-22 листопада 2002р.). – Чернівці, 2002.
– 736 с.