A 54 year old gentleman presented to my clinic with a chief concern of altered bowel habits since 12 years. A principled and inquisitive man, he reports first having altered bowel habits nearly 14 years ago, manifested by an increase in time spent in the loo for complete evacuation. On pressing further, he says that his visit to the wash is often preceded by a vague pain in his abdomen, which apparently may or may not relieve with defecation. He describes the pain as a poorly localising, diffuse, spasmodic pain that can last from anywhere between 5 to 15 minutes.
A Paradigm Shift - Reflections from Blinded Assessment of Online Learning Portfolios of MBBS Students
Another academic year has passed and a fresh batch of interns has arrived, and with each passing year, I feel 'academically older' and feel like I'm from the distant past. Inconspicuously, I have found myself wearning rose-tinted glasses on my hindisght and see my yesteryears as 'those glory days'. However, system 2 thinking takes over and I quickly realise that I was (and am) as the current crop of students are - incomplete, yearning to learn, with some sense of fear and insecurity as to what the future beholds. I was recently invited, along with my dear wife Dr. Madhavi Latha, to provide a blinded assessment of 32 students who just took their final MBBS exams, by assessing their long case, short case and seeing their performance recorded on video (only some students' videos were reviewed). The goal of this project is to compare their performance on their learning portfolios, to their university marks/assessment . The paradigm shift is in how we've moved fr...
