2008 Woodie Awards
Dr. Estrada develops teaching tool
Devi Sampat
Staff Writer
Issue date: 11/12/07 Section: News
- Page 1 of 1
The University of South Alabama College of Medicine recently added a new, interactive teaching tool to its collection. Dr. Benjamin Estrada, a professor of pediatrics at the College of Medicine, created and published a teaching tool designed to mimic clinical scenarios commonly observed in pediatric patients.
The interactive program called The Pediatric Call is compatible with Windows and utilizes multimedia to allow students to interact with virtual patients in a virtual hospital setting. Using the tool, third-year pediatric clerkship and physical assistant students rotating through pediatrics can go through virtual pediatric rounds. Each session is equipped with hospital staff, a care team and patients with various symptoms who are all in the form of three-dimensional characters. The students can then order diagnostic tests and manage to care for a variety of sicknesses such as childhood obesity, congenital heart disease, diabetes and meningitis.
Dr. Estrada began working on The Pediatric Call in 2003 with support provided by the Mitchell Clinical Scholars Program sponsored by Mr. Abraham Mitchell and is able to provide the program for free at USA's College of Medicine.
"The program is freely provided to our medical students during their third year clerkship and is reproduced periodically by the department of educational technologies at the college of medicine," Dr. Estrada said. "The program has been copyrighted and it is reproduced so it can provide enough copies for free to the students rotating through pediatrics."
The Association of American Medical Colleges launched "MedEdPortal," the publication that Dr. Estrada's Pediatric Call is now a part of, with hopes of receiving positive feedback.
"The feedback has been very positive not only from our own medical students and faculty but also through presentations in regional meetings and 'MedPortal,'" Dr. Estrada said.
The interactive program called The Pediatric Call is compatible with Windows and utilizes multimedia to allow students to interact with virtual patients in a virtual hospital setting. Using the tool, third-year pediatric clerkship and physical assistant students rotating through pediatrics can go through virtual pediatric rounds. Each session is equipped with hospital staff, a care team and patients with various symptoms who are all in the form of three-dimensional characters. The students can then order diagnostic tests and manage to care for a variety of sicknesses such as childhood obesity, congenital heart disease, diabetes and meningitis.
Dr. Estrada began working on The Pediatric Call in 2003 with support provided by the Mitchell Clinical Scholars Program sponsored by Mr. Abraham Mitchell and is able to provide the program for free at USA's College of Medicine.
"The program is freely provided to our medical students during their third year clerkship and is reproduced periodically by the department of educational technologies at the college of medicine," Dr. Estrada said. "The program has been copyrighted and it is reproduced so it can provide enough copies for free to the students rotating through pediatrics."
The Association of American Medical Colleges launched "MedEdPortal," the publication that Dr. Estrada's Pediatric Call is now a part of, with hopes of receiving positive feedback.
"The feedback has been very positive not only from our own medical students and faculty but also through presentations in regional meetings and 'MedPortal,'" Dr. Estrada said.
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