Lernverhalten mit CASUS-Fällen der Onkologie

Over the last couple of years veterinary oncology has been an
emerging field in veterinary medicine. Oncology as a speciality
does not only require profound knowledge in the field of oncology
itself but also in internal medicine and surgery. To better prepare
newly educated veterinarians for those requirements, German
universities established new methods of student education. Despite
those new measures only a few interesting oncologic cases can be
discussed with a broad audience due to a high student load. This
problem might be overcome in future using elearning systems like
CASUS which present virtual, clinical cases to the students. For
that reason, the first goal of this thesis was to design four cases
using the CASUS system. By means of a conceptual design, CASUS
strives for and encourages a differentiated and rule-out based
performance. Another goal in this thesis was to identify if
students like the case presentations and if they are willing to use
CASUS for their medical education. It was shown that students were
highly motivated to work on further clinical cases after solving a
CASUS case. Students rated CASUS as a very good supplementation in
addition to regular lectures and workshops. They would even like to
use CASUS more often. In addition, the very practical approach was
greatly appreciated and the presentation of cases was very easy to
understand in its current form. An additional goal was to evaluate
if the clinical rotations lead to a greater knowledge in individual
specialities. A multiple choice test was used and oncology was
chosen as an exemplary speciality. In addition it was determined if
working on a CASUS case even further increased their knowledge.
Students completing the oncology rotation were significantly better
than students completing the cardiology rotation. Furthermore,
working on a CASUS case significantly improved the test results in
both groups, cardiology and oncology rotation. This has been shown
for the first time in veterinary medicine with this work. In
conclusion we can say that knowledge of students was increased by a
clinical rotation in the according speciality. A good learning
success can be achieved by additionally working on computer-based
virtual clinical cases. Summarizing, CASUS is a learning method
that is well accepted and easy to use by students and also leads to
increased in-depth knowledge. In the future, CASUS cases could be
used to better compare students and their knowledge in exam
situations.