Developing surgical decision making skills through dynamic branching short cases and reflection

Abstract

This paper describes the development of reflective branching short cases to facilitate medical student’s acquisition of surgical decision-making skills. Decision-making skills are an important attribute of a competent surgeon. However, the acquisition of decision making skills is often not explicit in medical curricula and is developed by experience after graduation. Formative dynamic branching cases were developed for students to interact with, as part of a surgical decision-making eLearning site. The cases require students to make and reflect on decisions. Feedback is provided about the decision-making process, with links to eTutorials providing more information about decision making factors. Initial feedback from student testers indicates they welcome this learning strategy and feel that it encourages them to be more reflective about their decision-making skills. Interactive branching short cases with a focus on decision-making factors enable students to practice the three recognised modes of reflection; reflection in-action, on-action and for-action.