Integrated lecturing within clerkship course: a new learning method in nurseanesthesia teaching

Background and purpose: The conventional lecture-based teaching method that has been used to transit theoretical knowledge to the participants is inadequate. Due to some issues with this didactic approach, it is believed that integration of this approach with an active method may be more valuable in nursing education. In this study, we hypothesized that integrating lecture-based teaching within clerkship course would enhance the knowledge of nurse-anesthesia students. Methods: This prospective randomized study was conducted on 24 students of second-year nurse-anesthesia course. All students received either didactic lectures or integrated lectures within the clerkship course during a 4-month semester of their educational curriculum. Their knowledge of anesthesia course was assessed at the end of the course using the Wilcoxon Rank test. Results: The adopted integrated method improved the students’ final scores at the end of the semester (p=0.004). Moreover, their scores were much improved in taxonomy-2 questions (p=0.001). Conclusions: Incorporating a didactic lecture approach within anesthesia clerkship course improves the knowledge of the participants in the anesthesia course.