for Teaching Clinical Pathology to Second-year Medical Students*

A computer-assisted learning program for teaching clinical pathology to second year medical students has been developed and evaluated. These programs are designed to be used as supplements to formal lectures, labo ratory exercises, and small group discussions. Students are given case his tories and asked to select differential diagnoses, order and in terpret labo ratory and diagnostic tests, and make final diagnostic conclusions. In some cases, laboratory monitoring of treatm ent, e.g., drug therapy, is em pha sized. The performance of the student is objectively evaluated during each stage. In addition, the amount spent for each workup is recorded with penalities given for excess or inappropriate test ordering. Separate evalua tions are performed to assess the effectiveness of these programs as an alternative teaching format to (1) formal lectures and reading assignments, and (2) faculty-directed small group discussions. It is concluded that the computer-assisted learning m ethod is equivalent to lectures and group discussions and is a format that is well accepted by students