Appraisal of weekly conducted clinical pathologic case conference (CPC)

Background: The weekly held clinical pathologic case conference popularly known as CPC providesan effective and regular educational media of collaborative learning for inter-disciplinary exchangeof knowledge among the faculty members of an institution. CPC has been routinely practiced for thelast two decades in School of medical Sciences (SMS) at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). An hoursession primarily involves a case presentation hiding the diagnosis followed by discussion ondifferential diagnosis and floor interaction on interesting clinical cases. It also gives an opportunity tonew teaching staff in the institution to experience an in-house practice of presenting the clinicalcases; witch can readily be reproduced as a case report for publication. An effort to follow theoriginal format of CPC is comprehended as an essential outcome of this study to keep up the sanctityof CPC as a case method of learning medicine in future.Methodology: A questionnaire-based survey was recently conducted to evaluate the weekly heldCPC in SMS. It was a cross sectional survey in which a questionnaire comprising of 23 items wasadministered to a targeted population of faculty members of School of Medical Sciences. The itemsin questionnaire were grouped into 5 clusters. All respondents were adequately briefed through aletter addressing the objectives and importance of survey and its appraisal aiming to revamp the CPCguided by the out-come of study. Questionnaires were administered to 240 academic staff, covering 80% of the target population of 294 faculty members. 159 (66.2%) members of sample populationcompleted the questionnaires. Total non-responses were 81 (33.7%) and item non-responses were320 (8.7%)Result: All the items in questionnaire were found significant (p 0.016) except those two itemsrelated to, observing a difference in preparing for a case presentation verses a formal CPCpresentation and its promotion (p 0.556 and 0.197 respectively). It was also established that themajor respondents were unaware of the original format of CPC (p 0.003) in which a presenter selectand prepares a case, which is discussed with participating faculty members for its differentialdiagnoses. 51.6% faculty members did not follow the formal CPC format (p 0.016) in theirpresentations. A lack of awareness about the format of CPC was shown by (61.0%) faculty members(p 0.003).Conclusion:. It was concluded that emphasis to discuss the differential diagnosis by a competentdiscussant was lacking, as presenters did not follow the formal CPC format. It was critically observedthat a number of presentations made in this weekly program deviate from the original formatadapted by SMS in USM. However, the out-come appraisal of this survey was the pledge shown bythe majority faculty members to adapt the guidelines as a reverence to the formal CPC format.