Dr House – The Netherlands (IFMSA NL)

Name of the activity: Dr House

Country/NMO: The Netherlands (IFMSA NL)

Program: Teaching Medical Skills

Contact information: [email protected]

Type of the activity: Education

General description:

The Dr. House project consists of evenings where one episode of the House M.D. series is watched partially or entirely. With this, a doctor and/or a third party, familiar with the disease that is treated in the corresponding episode, will be present. At the start of the evening and/or in between, catering can be provided, for example in the form of a snack and a drink. This catering is optional and dependent on the regulations of conduct of the University regarding to food in the (lecture) rooms. After the welcome ,the episode starts in accompaniment of an expert with knowledge on the theme. How this expert arranges the evening regarding the episode pauses and discussions is being decided in consultation with the local committee. The episode can be watched entirely in one go,or in parts. The expert could ask the audience halfway the episode to think of a differential diagnosis. The expert will stimulate the students in an interactive way to think about the episode and the diagnoses, to shed light on the many medical views on the theme. The local committee itself is responsible for the organization. When the episode has ended, a discussion or interactive quiz about the diagnostic and ethical aspects of the evening can follow.

Focus area:

Diagnostic measures, Doctor-Patient communication skills, Diagnostic tests interpretation, Soft Skills for medical practitioners

Problem statement:

Healthcare professionals, medical students and medically interested people are often unfamiliar with ethical, critical and analytical thinking about medical diagnoses and treatments. Too little attention is given to these forms of thinking regarding diagnoses and treatments.

Target groups and beneficiaries:

The ‘Dr. House project’ is meant for all medically interested people, but mainly for medical students. In this way both medical students as non-medical students will learn about analytical critical reasoning in medical diagnosis and treatment. This will improve the treatment and diagnosis of patients provided by medical professionals, but also decrease the fair and unrealistic thoughts among the general population. The target number of visitors varies per local committee, but at least 50 to 150 visitors are assumed per evening. In the end the whole community will encounter the benefits of this project by better diagnosis and less unrealistic views.

Objectives and indicators of success:

Goal; To stimulate medically interested people / medical students /healthcare professionals in an entertaining way to ethical critical and analytical reasoning. At the same time to bring unrealistic / unethical aspects or reasoning of the series House M.D. disclosed.
Subgoals:
o Medical students learn ethical, critical and analytical reasoning
o Medical students learn about unrealistic and unethical aspects of Dr. House.
o Ethical decision skills of medical students will be developed
o Improvement of diagnosis and treatment by future medical students.
o Medically interested people / healthcare professionals learn ethical, critical and analytical reasoning
o Medically interested people / healthcare professionals learn about unrealistic and unethical aspects of Dr. House.

Methodology:

The Dr. House project consists of evenings where one episode of the House M.D. series is watched partially or entirely. With this, a doctor and/or a third party, familiar with the disease that is treated in the corresponding episode, will be present. At the start of the evening and/or in between, catering can be provided, for example in the form of a snack and a drink. This catering is optional and dependent on the regulations of conduct of the University regarding to food in the (lecture) rooms. After the welcome ,the episode starts in accompaniment of an expert with knowledge on the theme. How this expert arranges the evening regarding the episode pauses and discussions is being decided in consultation with the local committee. The episode can be watched entirely in one go,or in parts. The expert could ask the audience halfway the episode to think of a differential diagnosis. The expert will stimulate the students in an interactive way to think about the episode and the diagnoses, to shed light on the many medical views on the theme. The local committee itself is responsible for the organization. When the episode has ended, a discussion or interactive quiz about the diagnostic and ethical aspects of the evening can follow.

With this the project should stimulate medically interested people / medical students / healthcare professionals in an entertaining way to ethical critical and analytical reasoning. At the same time to bring unrealistic / unethical aspects or reasoning of the series House M.D. disclosed. This would improve diagnosis by healthcare professionals and at the same time decrease the unrealistic and unethical views about diagnosis among the general population.

The Dr. House project is organized at least once a year by every local committee of IFMSA-NL. Moreover, plans have been made to make a national standard episode for introduction weeks of the participating Universities.

Plans for evaluation:

Evaluation is done in different ways. First of all, general information about the evening can be obtained by gathering statistics of the evening using the entry list. One can think of the amount of visitors, and the study year and study of the visitors. Moreover, the audience of a Dr. House evening are requested to fill out a short evaluation survey, regarding the organisation of the evening, the lecturer(s) and the content of the evening. A standard evaluation form is requestable at the National Project Coordinator Dr. House. The local committees discuss the evaluation forms per evening and consider improvement based on the tips and tops of the past evening for the next one. Lastly, the local committees write a brief evaluation in the Dr. House Database NL in which they inform other local committees about recommendations. Not all committees are evaluating their Dr. House evening yet, but this is the aim.