“Rheuma (be-)greifen”— A multimodal teaching concept to improve rheumatology education for medical students

Abstract

Background: The German Society for Rheumatology, through its campaign Rheuma2025, aims to improve student teaching in order to ensure patient care for rheumatological patients in the future. Objective: To assess whether a combination of traditional and innovative educational methods provide both an improvement in the quality of teaching and an increase in the attractiveness of rheumatology as a discipline. Material and methods: Establishment of the teaching concept “Rheuma (be-)greifen” consisting of five modules on patient history taking with acting patients, musculoskeletal ultrasound, arthrocentesis, 3D printing of pathological joints and virtual reality applications based on real patient cases in the curricular teaching of medical students. Results: The evaluation of the teaching concept with 93 students of medicine showed a consistently high acceptance of all modules, which were rated as very effective or rather effective. Direct patient-related modules, such as history taking with acting patients, musculoskeletal ultrasound and arthrocentesis, received even higher acceptance than the visualization methods utilizing 3D printing and virtual reality. Conclusion: Innovative teaching methods can help to improve the acceptance of teaching in the field of rheumatology, especially when combined with classical teaching contents.