Practical, Applied, and Research-Based Teaching Strategies for Physicians

Aspiring physicians face a large amount of information that must be learned and retrieved in real time. The skills that helped medical students reach residency may not be the enough to succeed as a physician. For example, like many students, cramming the night before an exam probably helped achieve a satisfactory score. Unfortunately, cramming does not require that the information be retained and applied overtime. The content acquired in medical school is cumulative, that is, the information learned remains relevant months and even years later. Not only does content need to remembered, the knowledge must be constantly updated as new research makes some information more relevant and other information less important. Finally, the stakes as a physician are high. Forgetting a critical piece of information will not result in a lower test score, it can seriously harm patients. This article is a practical approach to teaching medical doctors, based on a literature review, including practical, scientific, and applied research and strategies ways in which teaching can be done that result in depth of learning in the resident.