Teaching a multidisciplinary approach to cancer treatment during surgical clerkship via an interactive board game

Background: Although educators agree that the approach to cancer management must be multidisciplinary, medical students usually observe cancer patients through the eyes of a single specialist at any given time. Methods: In order to teach third-year medical students that cancer management is multidisciplinary, we developed the Oncology Game, an interactive, computer-assisted board game built on the principles of self-directed learning and student-student interaction. Eight “patients” with different histologic types of cancer are distributed randomly to 4 students, who play in teams of 2. The object is for the team to obtain the best treatment for its patients by advancing them via a roll of dice through surgical, medical, and radiation oncology clinics in the order most logical for the patient’s particular cancer type. To test improvement in cognitive skills as a function of play, 16 students participated in a tournament taking parallel pretest and posttests before and after each round of play. Results: Students demonstrated a statistically significant change in the total number of questions answered correctly each time they played the Oncology Game (F = 4.16, P = 0.018; Pretest Round 1: 8.88 ± 0.58; Posttest Round 1: 9.63 ± 0.42; Pretest Round 2: 10.75 ± 0.62; Posttest Round 2: 11.5 ± 0.85). Post hoc pairwise comparison revealed a significant improvement in student performance after playing two rounds of the Oncology Game. Based on the postgame survey, students felt they improved their understanding of oncologic principles (4.56 ± 0.13), knowledge of malignancies (4.50 ± 0.13), and appreciation for the multidisciplinary nature of cancer management (4.56 ± 0.13). Conclusions: Improved test scores and postgame survey results demonstrate that third-year medical student students can learn about basic oncology principles and gain an appreciation for oncology as a multidisciplinary field of medicine through an interactive, computer-assisted board game.