2012 Grant Recipient's Abstract: James Noble, MD, MS

October 27, 2011

James Noble, MD, MS

"Assessing Efficiency of Learning the Neurologic Exam With a Visual Tracking Device"

Background: Clinical neurologic education across a longitudinal curriculum—from medical student to practicing physician—includes repeated clinical experiences informing or reinforcing didactic learning and prior clinical exposure, and is evaluated by subjective observations and standardized testing. We propose assessing clinical neurologic learners by visual scanning patterns as a tool to inform educational practices and potentially identify novel evaluative methods.

Methods: Participants: 5 preclinical medical students, 5 neurology residents, and 3 movement disorders attending physicians, all drawn from the faculty and staff of Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Procedure: Baseline assessment: Each participant will watch 3 videos of standardized patients with clinical Parkinson Disease (PD). Video will be shown 3 times to assess visual scanning patterns relative to watching the video alone. Movement disorders attending physicians will be the control/expert condition.

Intervention: Learners will participate in 1 of 3 conditions: reading a PD review, watching a multimedia PD lecture, or spending a clinical session with a PD specialist. Learners will then re-watch the standard 3 videos to assess interval change.

Assessment: Participants will watch each video while using the SensoMotoric eyetracker device. Regions of interest (ROI) will be developed for each video. Saccades and fixation durations, relative to ROIs, will be assessed across levels of expertise and within the individual across trials.

Innovation: Visual scanning patterns of neurologic learners have not been assessed despite lengthy application in our field. Such assessments could inform best practices for efficient methods of neurologic education and additionally provide a novel assessment tool.

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