Acute Kidney Injury and Chronic Kidney Disease

Abstract

Abstract To facilitate the learning of the fundamental knowledge expected of pre-clinical medical students about acute and chronic kidney diseases, a team-based learning (TBL) module was developed to replace traditional lectures regarding this material. This module is designed to provide appropriate background resource materials using readily available resources. The TBL format than assures student preparation by providing the individual and group readiness assurance tests and the group application exercises that allow students to apply their knowledge. This TBL module is designed to replace lectures and provide an active learning approach to both acute and chronic kidney diseases. Acute and chronic kidney disease are common disorders in clinical medicine and responsible for significant morbidity and mortality. Almost every student will encounter patients with these disorders when they perform their clinical duties. Enhancing students ability to learn and apply the fundamental pathophysiologic principles that occur in these disorders will improve their ability to provide safe and effective patient care. This TBL module was created to move away from traditional lectures about these topics and create an active, learner centered approach which gives students an opportunity to apply knowledge to realistic patient scenarios. This module has now been used for three years in the second year “kidney block”. Effectiveness of this method has been monitored by demonstrating a statistically significant improvement in student performance for the overall mean examination score for the entire kidney block, using the same questions over the last three years. The number of questions related to just this content material was too small to make significant inferences. Secondly, student in-class discussion while applying this content has gone from non-existent in the lecture format to deep and thoughtful explanations of important pathophysiologic principles.

Keywords

• Chronic Kidney Disease
• Kidney Failure
• Renal Insufficiency
• Acute Kidney Injury
• Pre-Renal Azotemia
• Uremia