Best Practices ‘Practical training’: Example Internal Medicine
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Faculty |
Faculty of Medicine |
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Subject |
Internal medicine |
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Type of course |
Qualified (virtual) bedside teaching |
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Title of the course |
Practical training ‘Rheumality—rheumatology education using virtual reality’ |
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Number of participants |
238 students of the 8th subject-related semester Human Medicine |
Every year in the summer semester, the (compulsory) practical training Rheumatology is offered in the form of a qualified bedside teaching course. This course complements the lecture through a refresher course on the pathology of rheumatic diseases followed by a patient-based case demonstration on the most common rheumatic disease patterns (rheumatoid arthritis, spondyloarthritis and psoriatic arthritis).
Due to the pandemic, the course was converted into a virtual format with virtual patients in a virtual reality (rheumality).
Didactic-methodical implementation
In analogy to the classical practical training in rheumatology, the refresher course was conducted online and Rheumality was used for case presentation. Rheumality contains virtual patients with early rheumatoid arthritis, long-term rheumatoid arthritis and psoriatic arthritis. It introduces the virtual patients with their clinic and medical history. The inflammatory changes in the bone are imaged using X-ray diagnostics and high-resolution peripheral quantitative computed tomography (HR-pQCT). In the virtual space, the HR-pQCT images can be moved in three dimensions and also be enlarged as required, making it possible to even ‘walk through’ them (for details see Figure 1).
| Teaching unit | Learning objectives | Method | |
| Refresher course | 1 | Revision of the inflammatory rheumatic pathologies (rheumatoid arthritis, spondyloarthritis and psoriatic arthritis) with regard to clinic, diagnostics and therapy. | Presentation with open questions |
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Patient demonstration |
2 |
Patient demonstration by means of virtual patients in a virtual reality (Rheumality) with regard to the following disease patterns:
Presentation of the patient with regard to the medical history, clinic, presentation of the inflammatory joint destruction by means of X-ray diagnostics as well as high-resolution peripheral quantitative computer tomography (HR-pQCT) and therapy. |
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Figure 1 ‘Insights into Rheumality’ shows: A Welcome lobby with the option to select patients. B Hand X-ray showing the radiographic evidence of joint changes associated with rheumatoid arthritis. C Virtual image of the metacarpophalangeal joint II (index finger) by high-resolution peripheral quantitative computed tomography (HR-pQCT). D HR-pQCT shows the osseous changes in detail. Rheumality allows a magnification of the bone defects as well as a walk-through of the bone. This is an impressive way of teaching students about the bone pathologies in rheumatoid arthritis and psoriatic arthritis.