Written Feedback
Discussion
Written Feedback
The optional comment field was completed by 18 % of participants . The main themes that emerged were as follows :
IMPACT ON HEALTH CARE TEAMWORK IN THE LONG RUN
Students viewed the teaching sessions as a positive experience , expressing enthusiasm towards more opportunities for similar collaboration efforts , and hoping that such interventions would be offered on a more regular basis .
“ Throughout the last few months , placements have taught me that if even one person from the team does not co-operate , this disrupts the entire team . This should , in my opinion , by tackled by such initiatives at University level .”
“ I hope this section of our education as healthcare professionals continues to grow as time goes by .”
“ My first experience was very positive and I look forward to other opportunities to collaborate and learn from students from other faculties and courses .”
“ Should be on going as this is great way to learn from each other and share our knowledge .”
Some students thought that such sessions were an ideal educational model to strengthen teamwork . Others stated that the intervention provided clinical knowledge which had not been formally tackled within the PT course and that the peer educators improved in their teaching over the sessions .
“ The team has gotten better since the first session ; it was all super useful . From the perspective of how it helps with our upcoming exams , the skeletal anatomy section was very useful and the clinical knowledge section was invaluable since we don ’ t cover it formally in our course …. it ’ s great that we learnt this through these sessions .”
RETENTION OF KNOWLEDGE
Some students reported that these sessions were a more effective method of retaining learned anatomical knowledge than reading materials .
“ Going to the dissection lecture was a good opportunity …. It actually helped me to visualise what I read in the book and makes it easier to remember . I am looking forward to more like these in the coming months !”
CONTINUE TO OFFER OPPORTUNITIES FOR PEER TEACHING AND LEARNNG
No negative feedback was given about the sessions and their content , and several students expressed desire for the sessions to have been longer and more numerous .
“ I think many students would benefit more if shared learning occurs on a regular basis .”
“ Should keep this going as it is great to learn from each other and share our knowledge .”
“ Learning through these sessions was a very beneficial experience . I would welcome another opportunity !”
Discussion
There is consistent evidence in the literature that gross anatomy teaching across professions improves communication and teamwork as well as the attitudes of health care students towards each other ( Hamilton et al , 2008 ; Harden , 2015 ; Sytsma et al , 2015 ; Smith et al , 2015 ). This is the first study of the effectiveness of peer-to-peer learning between MD and PT students in terms of both pre / post test scores of anatomy knowledge as well as attitudes , communication and teamwork attributes . All the planning and teaching in this study was carried out by students themselves .
Although the scores were generally low , we have demonstrated a statistically significant improvement in the mean MCQ test scores in each year of the PT student cohort before and after the peer-to-peer intervention . The low scores may reflect the fact that PT students were not familiar with MCQ testing in the same manner as MD students were . Year 2 PT students were chronologically the first group to attend the dissection demonstration of the hand . This cohort experienced the smallest difference between pre- and post-intervention MCQ results . While still a statistically significant improvement , this small difference may be attributed to the learning curve of the MD-student peer educators . In subsequent sessions , more focus was placed on