Contrasting PBL in Nepal and PBL in Canada (well, BC anyway)

Katie and I met today (the other day now...took me a while to post!) with Babu Raja to discuss a PBL case that is focusing on BRCA1 mutations and inherited forms of breast cancer. He wanted to get our opinion about the genetics and medical genetics aspects of the case before we met at 10:15 am with a larger group of people to discuss the case. I should tell you that this case will be used the week after next (!). We made a number of suggestions, added guiding questions, and changed the structure, wording and flow of the case together. During our larger meeting more suggestions were made and some further changes came about.
Babu then sent the case by email to Katie and I to write the tutor guide by Tuesday. We need to provide answers to all of the guiding questions that we posed. I think that will be great!

Here is the first major difference for me. At home, I am not this involved in designing PBL cases and my feedback is rarely if ever heard never mind integrated into real changes and improvements of a case! It is a fun and exciting process. I am also impressed with how involved and listened to everyone is in this process - everyone has a say and it is enthusiastically welcomed. I know that this is largely due to the fact that this is a new program and all help is welcome, but I was struck by my usefulness and the team atmosphere.

Then we were called to attend the case feedback session. It was held in one of the lecture halls and all 58 medical students were in attendance. As well, 15 faculty members were there and Arjun, the vice-chancellor, was there as well. The students were asked by Babu to first summarize the case and then they were asked which, if any, learning objectives were not covered by the case. This was a case of a pregnant woman taking cold medication during pregnancy. A similar case to what we have used at UBC. Each group (7 in total) was asked to stand and state the numbers they felt were missed. Then Satish addressed their concerns one by one. He did so in a very interactive and positive way. Then the students were asked if there were any questions that they had about the case that could be cleared up. There were so many experts in the room they could ask anything at all! They had some great questions and everything was cleared up.

Here is the next major difference. The students were asked to give explicit feedback about a PBL case in a manner that I am only used to seeing in faculty meetings. The people in attendance was also significantly different. Quite impressive.