Teaching a multidisciplinary approach 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 patient s through the eyes of a single specialist at any given time. METHODS: In order to teach third-year medical students that cancer manageme nt is multidisciplinary, we developed the Oncology Game, an interactive, co mputer-assisted board game built on the principles of self-directed learnin g and student-student interaction. Eight "patients" with different histolog ic types of cancer are distributed randomly to 4 students, who play in team s of 2. The object is for the team to obtain the best treatment for its pat ients by advancing them via a roll of dice through surgical, medical, and r adiation oncology clinics in the order most logical for the patient's parti cular 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 to tal number of questions answered correctly each time they played the Oncolo gy Game (F = 4,16, P = 0.018; Pretest Round 1: 8.88 +/- 0.58; Posttest Roun d 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. Base d on the postgame survey, students felt they improved their understanding o f oncologic principles (4.56 +/- 0.13), knowledge of malignancies (4.50 +/- 0,13), and appreciation for the multidisciplinary nature of cancer managem ent (4.56 +/- 0.13). CONCLUSIONS: Improved test scores and postgame survey results demonstrate t hat third-year medical student students can learn about basic oncology prin ciples and gain an appreciation for oncology as a multidisciplinary field o f medicine through an interactive, computer-assisted board game. Am J Surg. 2000;179:337-340. (C) 2000 by Excerpta Medica, Inc.