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If you’re a recent medical student, you will know this curriculum so well..
Since 2007, most of Indonesia medical schools had PBL as main curriculum and style of study…
My school had used PBL curriculum in 2004, so..there are 5 batches who used this
curriculum since 2004…
well,…..if you don’t know about PBL, this is the head…
PBL (Problem Based Learning) is a way of medical learning based Problems.
PBL emphasizes medical student to cope the problem in small group by learning some objectives
So you can solve the problem,eventually….
It makes you such an adult learner because you indepently search the objectives on your own instead of being taught , based on your need of learning…..
sometimes PBL calls KBK (Kurikulum berbasis Kompetensi)in Indonesia
So every week,you will get a case from scenario about your topic in this week..
For instance…in this week,your topic is about neoplasia(cancer)..you will get a scenario talking about a patient who get colorectal carcinoma. You will solve the problem in this scenario as if you were a real doctor. you approach the problems just like a real physician would in clinic…
Sounds impressive,right??.....No, you’re absolutely WRONG…
The Surprise is real physicians actually DON'T spend 2hours in tutorial discussing the cell signalling pathways involved in colorectal cancer…
And the fact is way too much different than the concept of PBL…
And..believe me…this curriculum is not as impressive as something you heard…
Well….It's not that I hate it that much.
What I hate is Its sanctity as the highest bastion of collegial learning, I think, is too much overwhelmed…and then…
Why the hell Indonesia medical schools so freakin’ proud being a PBL school ??!!!!!
So, these are the things I hate about PBL curriculum :
A. The amount of learning time
I think the time is too short…this is the main factor why I hate PBL…
How come they hope us shovelling massive amounts of data into our tender young brains in ONE WEEK ???
In conventional curriculum, you learned parasitology in 20 classes but in PBL you just learned about 3 classes???
last time I learned antibiotics and kortikosteroid just in 50 minutes…wow…you absolutely know how important antibiotics in medicine…and you just learned this in 50 minutes???
My tutor always complain my group why We just learned the topic only in superficial. “ You should learn this topic in its real core, not only in its superficial”..she said…Well it’s easy to say..but she never felt how’s the feeling being a PBL medical student who tried “half-died” to cope the whole aspect…
I mean…
how come you can learn deeply the anatomy,histology,physiology,biochemistry of neuro system in one Week??
Hello..We have real life…We don’t use the whole 24 hours a day only for study…
My school teaches us pharmacy less (or..can I say, Barely???)than before because this curriculum…..I feel like its going to be a huge hole to fill during my clinical phase… No wonder, there are some third year medical student in my school who didn’t know at all what the function of mesenamat acid….
And…ask me about gross anatomy of neuro system..Bite me coz
I completely forgot because I just learned that formally in lecture in 50 minutes and the whole neuro system topic in ONE WEEK..
B. Lecturer
The amount time of Lecturer is too limited…50 pages of medical textbook magically transform to 50 minutes..
How can I insist my brain to get the whole information in 50 minutes??
I hate When my lecture cut out the lecturer in the main core of topic and said..”this is your next job to gain more information about this topic”..
Well…it won’t be problem if one lecture said that, but how about the whole lecture give that task… oh,my…it’s really wasting my time…
It’s getting worse when the lecture didn’t mention any source to cope this topic…then..you will find me drowning in whole old medical textbook or googling until I find the right source…and it’s very wasting my time…
C. Tutorial
tutorial in US medical school...
is it just one /two people doing the talking while everyone else stares blankly and nods (without knowing what he/she nods for)??
C’mon…is there any of medical student who REALLY heard his friend during tutorial time??
It’s really boring listening a friend giving a clumsy explanation about the topic that a lecture could synthesize in two sentence. And It’s quite annoying when my tutor, who experts with the topic of the scenario, chuckled hearing my explanation. But when our group asked her/him about the topic, didn’t want to give information, because he/she should not give mini lecturer in tutorial, instead of that, asked me to searching this information...(why don’t you just give that information??)
When I finished my tutorial..sometimes I muttered "Man... that tutorial was 2 hours of my life I'll never get back".
D. Plennary Discussion
Well..the concept of HUGE class of groups making a discussion about medical case sounds impressive…but the fact is…..well…awful…
What I really hate is when An outstanding-brilliant medical student tried to make him/her impressive by asking a question ( who obviously he/she completely knows about that) to his/her an average medical student….
But actually that’s not the real problem..
The real problem is when there’s no any expert come to the plenary discussion..
I mean…you come to plenary discussion due to want getting the new information or clearing some misunderstanding in tutorial…
But…when you enter the discussion room, there’s no any expert..
Just your classmates giving presentation that material had given in lecturer…
And when you asked your question…..your classmates said..
“ I’m sorry..I can’t answer that question because our group don’t discuss that topic and we don’t have any information about that…”
SO WHAT’S THE POINT?????
And How come they hope us to learn each other while we had same question, same source, same amount of time to cope with this problem???
and there are so many reason why do I hate PBL…
Being PBL medical student...
the worst feeling being a PBL medical student is feeling that all the work I do is valueless because I forget most of what I learn within a week after any given exam. We're given a mountain of information to learn in a ridiculously short period of time ….so we study countless hours a day and all night trying to cram it all in. But then we take the exam, may or may not do well, but either way move on and end up forgetting the previous block and try to remember the mountain of information in next block….
We always argue that it's just Indonesia culture who can adapt the way of PBL...
but I changed my mind when I read some thread in studentdoctor.net/forum
Even US medical students relieved that they don't really like PBL because its inefficiency..
check out that sites...and you will find interesting statement...
However, on the other hand, I have to admit that PBL had made a new academical aura in our school (with the concept of self studying). PBL can be entertaining (usually in inverse proportion to how efficient/on-topic your discussion is). It may serve as some vague approximation of how medicine is practiced in the real world (the way of team to solve the clinical problem). It's a great way to get to know your classmates. And one is less likely to fall asleep than during a lecture (hahaha…think about my high school moment)….
But Sometimes I wonder How it will make difference if medical schools in Indonesia mix the PBL/KBK curriculum with the conventional curriculum…
my tutorial group in first year
