The equilibrium potential of an ion species is a crucial concept for medical students, as it is a prerequisite to fully understanding the pathophysiology of K+ imbalances (hyperkalemia and hypokalemia) in clinical practice. However, it remains a challenging concept because current medical physiology textbooks are too simplistic and overlook…

A good knowledge of the theoretical foundations of medicine helps students and physicians to better recognize and treat patients with complex medical conditions, including sepsis and septic shock. The article describes the authors' experience in implementing the analysis of sepsis and septic shock using a high-fidelity simulated clinical scenario…

There is evidence that demonstrates that teaching preclinical and clinical material can have numerous benefits for both students and teachers, with the majority of literature focusing on peer medical student teaching. There is a dearth of literature exploring the benefit of medical students teaching undergraduate, pre-health professional students…

As curricular emphasis on anatomy in undergraduate medical education continues to evolve, new approaches to anatomical education are urgently needed to prepare medical students for residency. A surgical anatomy class was designed for third- and fourth-year medical students to explore important anatomical relationships by performing realistic…

This article describes the integration of self-authorship theory to aid post-professional healthcare students in the continued development of professional identity. Specific teaching and instructional strategies are provided along with curricular development using a self-authorship framework.

The remarkable variation in superficial veins of the neck challenges anatomy students during cadaveric exploration. Despite frequently serving as cannulation sites, conduits for catheter placement, grafts following carotid endarterectomy, and a visual representation of central venous pressure, the jugular venous network and its variations are not…

In teaching of experiments for medical students, by using the isolation of mononuclear cells and identification of B lymphocytes, an experiment was developed that integrated biochemistry, cytology, and immunology techniques, from which the students performed a series of operations including spleen separation, isolating mononuclear cells, and…

Functional understanding of the different parts of the cardiovascular system is essential for an insight into pathomechanisms of numerous diseases. During training cardiovascular physiology, students and early-stage medical personnel should understand the role of different functional parameters for systolic and diastolic blood pressure, as well as…

The COVID-19 outbreak across the globe has forced educational institutions including medical schools to suspend campus learning in order to curb the spread of the virus. This has forced the teaching community to think of new avenues and alternate strategies for engaging our students. Many institutes of higher education have shifted to online-mode…

Hands-on dissection-based learning of anatomy offers an unique and valued experience for medical students. Too often however, the inexperienced student's focus is to avoid damage to unfamiliar structures instead of understanding spatial relationships between structures. This results in unfortunate surrender of a critical learning experience.…

Problem-based learning (PBL) is a type of active learning modality involving a student-centered approach that encompasses small group settings in order to promote learning via critical thinking and discussion as opposed to via direct presentation of facts and concepts. Through PBL, students engage actively in their learning. Facilitated PBL…

The laboratory practice "Primary culture and directional differentiation of rat bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs)" is part of a required course for sophomore medical students at Tongji university, which has been conducted since 2012. Blended learning has been widely applied in medical courses. Based on a student-centered…

Learning curves are a useful way of representing the rate of learning over time. Features include an index of baseline performance (y-intercept), the efficiency of learning over time (slope parameter) and the maximal theoretical performance achievable (upper asymptote). Each of these parameters can be statistically modelled on an individual and…

Learner-centered pedagogical methods that are based on clinical application of basic science concepts through active learning and problem solving are shown to be effective for improving knowledge retention. As the clinical relevance of biochemistry is not always apparent to health-profession students, effective teaching of medical biochemistry…

Stem cells are cells that can self-renew and differentiate into a variety of cell types under certain conditions. Stem cells have great potential in regenerative medicine and cell therapy for the treatment of certain diseases. To deliver knowledge about this frontier in science and technology to medical undergraduate students, we designed an…