Cases without borders: Can online discussion of clinical cases between high and low resource countries enhance learning in paediatrics?

NMUH Staff Publications

EMBASE

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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">Background and aims Gaining exposure to global child health can be difficult to organise both financially and logistically. 'Cases without borders' aims to evaluate the perceived learning benefits of an online case-exchange programme comparing clinical management between contrasting settings. Methods One hour online sessions were carried out over five months between two paediatric departments; a Malawian district hospital and a UK teaching hospital. Clinicians, Nurses and Students from both settings were invited to attend sessions facilitated by a UK registrar in each facility, using Skype or Whatsapp. Proformas divided down the middle, were circulated to participants in advance. The clerking and management of a case from each setting was entered on one side and emailed to the whole group. During the online presentation and discussion, the other hospital con-sidered how that case would be managed in their alternative setting, completing the other side of the proforma. Feedback was collected using an unvalidated perceived learning questionnaire devised by the facilitators using 10 questions on a 5-point likert scale. Results 6 exchange sessions were held covering 12 paired paediatric cases (table 1). Feedback was collected from 13 participants (7 Malawi, 6 UK). Mean score of all 10 questions was 4.26 out of 5 for all responders (4.3 for Malawi, 4.2 for UK), indicating per-ceived learning was high and similar for both groups. There was no significant difference in mean scores between the groups (p>0.05 using Mann-Whitney-U) for all feedback questions. Conclusions Cases without borders was perceived to enhance learning across settings, equally benefiting both sides, suggesting it is a suitable model for telemedicine programmes. Qualitative feedback suggests potential for increased interest and participation in evidence-based medicine and global child health in both contexts. Future iterations would benefit from an improved internet connexion and a larger feedback sample using a validated feedback tool. [Conference abstract]</span>