Issue link: https://kusm-wichita.uberflip.com/i/1024595
Valerie Binns First-year from Hiawatha, undergraduate degree in electrical engineering Valerie Binns came to medical school familiar with the kind of teamwork and hands-on problem- solving the new curriculum emphasizes, having worked through many electrical engineering projects at K-State. Getting her brain around constant large doses of information, now that's another thing. "It's definitely been a big change having to memorize things," she said. "There's a lot more individual learning. We are expected to learn before we go to lectures and are expected to apply that," said Binns, adding she's glad to have "a good background in being able to struggle through something and learn things on my own." Working with the same six other students week in, week out allows group members to know one another's strengths and weaknesses and how they interact. In the system, students don't get to choose their teammates, just as they wouldn't get to in a workplace. "It will be really helpful in the future. As a medical professional, you are expected to work with a variety of individuals. It's been very interesting to get that experience right off the bat." The case-based approach has included topics as common as diabetes and pneumonia and as unusual as DiGeorge and Goodpasture syndromes. "We get some cases that are really broad and we'll see multiple times throughout our careers and then there are ones that are very rare and we won't see as much," Binns said. With the new approach, pacing is one issue Binns has seen. "Our tests are only two weeks apart, and we get information right up to our tests and there's been some problems balancing content between the first and second weeks. But that's something they've been very responsive to," she said. "It's not fun to deal with challenges, but we're in a special position as the first class to go through this curriculum and they're relying on us to give feedback to make it the best curriculum possible," she said. Will Donelson First-year from Wichita, undergraduate degree in chemistry Will Donelson realized as an undergraduate at Tennessee's Union University that he learned best through the traditional lecture style, where he could soak up the informa- tion thrown at him. That makes the ACE curriculum's collaborative learning methods more of a stretch. "This has been a challenge in the sense that they don't just give me the information, that I have to find it for myself. But I think there's a lot of value to that. I wouldn't say it works super well with the way I learn, but I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing." On the other hand, he ran cross-country in college and has been "part of a team for most of my life. I really enjoy the collaboration in that sense." Donelson also appreciates how the curriculum strives to put information into context. They try to tie all the information into a very applicable case, and I think it really solidifies that knowledge. It also just makes it more clinically applicable, and I appreciate that. Valerie Binns, first-year, Hiawatha M E D I C I N E ATEAM SPORT