With the continuous improvement of people’s living standards and the development of medical science, the prevention, medical and health care system has been improved, infectious diseases have undergone great changes in the past 30 years, many classical infectious diseases have been basically controlled, the incidence rate has been significantly reduced, new pathogens and their causes of disease continue to appear, the old infectious diseases resurgence. In order to make the teaching content and teaching methods better adapt to this change, the department has made a lot of exploratory work on the teaching content, teaching methods and teaching means of infectious diseases in recent years, and achieved a better teaching effect. Lin Aiqing, Department of Infectious Diseases, The First Affiliated Hospital of Baotou Medical College
1 Teaching status.
1.1 Decline in the incidence of classical infectious diseases and single disease: with the continuous development of medical science and deepening of disease prevention and control, the spectrum of human diseases has changed greatly [1], some classical infectious diseases such as smallpox, cholera, B encephalitis, flukes, diphtheria, pertussis, schistosomiasis, malaria, etc. have been eliminated or the incidence has decreased significantly, and most infectious disease specialist hospitals and general hospitals Most of the infectious disease hospitals and the infectious disease departments of general hospitals mainly treat patients with hepatitis and tuberculosis, and the diseases available for teaching are single, which cannot meet the needs of clinical practice teaching.
1.2 Emerging infectious diseases [2] and lagging teaching materials: Due to the increase of international communication and the influence of ecological environment destruction, new infectious diseases such as infectious atypical pneumonia (severe acute respiratory syndrome, SARS), human avian influenza and human porcine streptococcal infection are constantly emerging. At present, the textbook of Infectious Diseases used by various institutions still focuses on various classical infectious diseases, which is very “Chinese” but fails to reflect the latest progress of the discipline. Except for viral hepatitis, the content of the textbook has not changed much from the 5th edition in March 2000 to the 7th edition in December 2007, with only a few new infectious diseases that have appeared in China since 2003.
1.3 Resurgence of Controlled Infectious Diseases and Faculty Discontinuity: Due to economic development, population movement and migration, improvement of living conditions and the emergence of drug-resistant strains, the incidence of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, venereal diseases and measles has increased significantly, and the incidence of some rare infectious diseases with local characteristics such as AIDS, brucellosis, epidemic hemorrhagic fever and malaria has also increased year by year. However, due to the lack of national investment and slow academic progress in recent years, many excellent graduates are unwilling to engage in clinical teaching of infectious diseases. After the old teachers with rich clinical and teaching experience retire, those who are added to the faculty are often young teachers who have not treated classical infectious diseases and have insufficient clinical experience, and the quality and effectiveness of teaching are obviously reduced.
2 Teaching reform methods and directions
Changes in the new situation of infectious diseases have put forward new requirements and challenges to clinical and teaching work, forcing us to carry out timely teaching reform, we have made bold attempts in the following aspects, and achieved obvious results.
2.1 Teaching content.
2.1.1 Teaching materials and lecture plan We take the syllabus and the general textbook of infectious diseases as the basic teaching content, and make the teaching plan according to the actual common and prevalent diseases in the northern region. In the teaching, we do not stick to the textbook content, and adjust the teaching content according to the current development of infectious diseases. For example, in the 2003-2004 academic year, the 5th edition of the textbook was supplemented by the introduction of infectious atypical pneumonia. However, since these three diseases have been given great national attention in recent years and their knowledge is relatively widespread, even though they are quite novel and shocking, they are only taught with the application of heuristic teaching in a passing manner, focusing on the introduction to develop students’ cognitive ability, emergency response ability, creative thinking and teamwork ability about infectious diseases.
2.1.2 General Teaching In the general teaching, we have added 2 hours of teaching in recent years, interspersed with several classic movies such as “Cassandra Bridge” and “Extreme Panic”, in which students are introduced to the spread and control of plague and Ebola hemorrhagic fever. The film introduced the spread and control of plague and Ebola hemorrhagic fever, and guided students to understand the basic concepts of infectious diseases, the classic examples of human struggle with infectious diseases, the new situation of infectious disease epidemic faced by human beings and the countermeasures we should take. This will help students to improve their learning efficiency, improve their learning methods and expand their learning ideas, and stimulate their interest in learning infectious diseases while implementing the teaching purpose of teaching and educating people.
2.1.3 Teaching of theories In the teaching of theories, viral hepatitis is the focus of teaching. In recent years, the research progress is very fast, and new research results appear every year, and the textbook content is seriously lagging behind. In our teaching, we always focus on teaching the latest research application results to students so that they receive the most cutting-edge knowledge of diagnosis and treatment. Some classical infectious diseases with low incidence today, such as whooping cough, diphtheria, scarlet fever, anthrax, and plague, are not taken as the focus of teaching, but are simply introduced as self-study content or in differential diagnosis. Some newly discovered infectious diseases in the past 30 years are very important and may be introduced into China at any time due to the increase of international interactions. It is necessary for students to grasp their epidemiological status and clinical manifestations, so we organically combine parts of new infectious diseases into the lectures of old infectious diseases according to the relevance of new and old infectious diseases. Students were also made aware of new infectious diseases such as “E. coli O157:H7 enteritis”, “Vibrio cholerae O139”, and “Ebola hemorrhagic fever”. This not only expands the students’ knowledge, but also makes them understand the new progress of infectious diseases, which has achieved a good effect.
2.2 Teaching methods
Although medicine is a practical science, the use of large classes to impart knowledge is still an essential form of teaching in medical education, so the improvement of teaching methods is particularly important in medical education, and a good teaching method can often achieve twice the result with half the effort. Over the years, we have placed special emphasis on strengthening the training of students’ clinical thinking ability in teaching practice, making full use of modern teaching methods, implementing the heuristic, discussion and interactive teaching methods of “teacher-led, student-led, problem-centered”, and leading teachers to raise questions around the teaching content or arrange some typical cases for clinical case discussions to mobilize the students. This mobilizes students’ initiative and enthusiasm, stimulates students’ creative thinking, cultivates students’ ability to identify, analyze and solve problems, deepens students’ understanding and application of teaching contents, and enlivens the classroom atmosphere.
As for the training of young teachers, we regularly organize group lesson preparation, and experienced teachers conduct demonstration teaching and summarize the problems existing in the previous stage of teaching. Young teachers have several trial lectures before the theoretical lectures, and teachers with many years of teaching experience participate in the review, so that they can improve and enhance continuously. At the same time, after each semester’s teaching, students’ comments on young teachers’ lectures are widely solicited so that teaching methods can be improved as soon as possible and the teaching ability of young teachers can be enhanced.
2.3 Teaching methods.
Effective use of various multimedia can expand the amount of information for teaching, improve the teaching efficiency of the classroom, and make the content of teaching more visual and vivid. Due to the special nature of infectious diseases, certain classical infectious diseases have been quite rare or even rare, we have made multimedia slides in teaching by ripping, online downloading and pictures of present patients into Powerpoint, which show the pathogens, pathological changes and clinical signs more vividly, intuitively and graphically, especially when the lecturer is explaining the pictures of the patients he personally treated, the experience is real, and the teaching This makes the teaching content more enriched and the teaching quality obviously improved. In the application, layers can also be introduced, which helps to form a logical reasoning process, facilitates students to follow the teacher’s thoughts, and promotes teacher-student discussion and dialogue. The video material and DVD playback can also compensate for the teaching challenges caused by the seasonal and regional distribution of infectious diseases and increase the students’ desire to learn more.
In conclusion, the changing medical situation and the rapid development of medicine have made clinical medical education face new challenges, and the traditional teaching contents, teaching methods and teaching means of infectious diseases have failed to meet the development needs of the new situation. Through continuous reform and exploration in recent years, students have shown great interest in teaching infectious diseases and achieved obvious reform effects.