The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association, 2008/08, 108(8):417. doi: 10.7556/jaoa.2008.108.8.413, type of study: ,css,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Full text    (https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.7556/jaoa.2008.108.8.413/html)

Keywords:

cross sectional study [894]
osteopathic medicine [2108]
teaching [83]
USA [1751]

Abstract:

Background: The incorporation of pre-doctoral teaching fellows in the department of Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine (OMM) at Touro University (TUCOM-CA) began in the spring semester, 2007. The OMM fellows interacted with 1st and 2nd year students by hosting review sessions, assisting in OMM lab, giving 4 lectures and preparing review summaries for exams. Hypothesis: The incorporation of pre-doctoral fellows into the OMM department demonstrates a favorable impact based on subjective and quantitative student evaluation. Methods: An evaluation survey was administered to 270 students from the class of 2009 & 2010 in May, 2007. Agreement with items relating to attitudes toward OMM practice, and beliefs about the value of teaching fellows in course performance was measured on a 7 point Likert scale (“Strongly Disagree” to “Strongly Agree”) with 3.5 representing “No Opinion”. The mean response score, standard deviation and 95% confidence interval for each question was determined. Response rate was 54.8% with 148 surveys collected. IRB approval was obtained. Results: Student responses show 94% agreement that the pre-doctoral fellows increased knowledge of Osteopathic techniques (mean response (MR) 4.97±0.39), with 72% agreement that working with fellows increased the time spent practicing OMM outside of class time (MR4.23±0.40). Secondly, 88% agreed that their knowledge of Osteopathic theory improved (MR4.99±0.42), and 51% agreed that exposure to fellows increased time spent studying OMM theory (MR3.82±0.39). 75% of students felt their grades on OMM lab practicals improved (MR4.36±0.41), while 54% agreed with an improvement grades in OMM theory (MR3.97±0.40). 79% of respondents agreed that working with OMM fellows increased their knowledge of applying OMM to clinical problems and improved their interest in integrating OMM into patient management (MR4.37±0.44; MR4.63±0.46). In a subgroup analysis of 70 respondents, however, no statistical significance was found in correlating change in OMM grades to exposure time with OMM fellows. This aspect of the study was limited by study design and sample size. Conclusion: Students believed most strongly that interacting with teaching fellows led to increased knowledge of OMM techniques and theory. The generally positive response to all items leads us to believe that students believe the teaching fellowship is beneficial. Further investigation into change in grades and exposure to OMM pre-doctoral fellows is warranted.