Studies Show Doctors Rapidly Forget Critical, Life-Saving Skills such as CPR and Life Support
Founded by Harvard Physicians, Medical Learning System’s next-generation education platform ensures medical students and professionals remember their training, saving lives in the process
Boston (PRWEB) January 18, 2010
“I feel like every time learn something new, I forget something else.” Such frustration – expressed by a second year medical student at the University of Michigan Medical School – is, unfortunately, shared by countless other medical students across the nation. This failure to retain knowledge is often ignored until it manifests as substandard patient care. An article in the March 2009 issue of the journal Resuscitation revealed that of a group of seventy trained pediatric residents, 66 percent failed to start CPR in a timely manner when faced with mannequin simulators requiring resuscitation. Strikingly, more years of training did not correlate with improved performance. Similarly, a June 1996 Journal of Trauma article showed that 50 percent of practicing trauma physicians failed a repeat Advanced Trauma Life Support examination merely six months after taking the course. Medical Learning System’s next-generation education platform, GunnerTraining. com, offers the first marketed solution to this problem.
GunnerTraining. com enables its users to not only master medical facts, but also maintain that mastery over their careers. This is achieved by leveraging the spacing effect, one of the primary underlying principles of memory. The spacing effect refers to the fact that humans and animals more easily remember or learn items in a list when they are studied a few times over a long period of time, rather than studied repeatedly in a short period of time. This principle has been successfully applied in medical education, having been recently vetted in three randomized, controlled trials at Harvard Medical School. The spacing effect is also an active area of research in neuroscience; in fact, its underlying mechanisms were recently identified, offering it much scientific credibility.
Dr. Frank Lau, M. D. – Founder of Medical Learning Systems – says that the overriding mission is to help medical professionals learn more efficiently and effectively, and remember their training throughout their careers. “Ultimately, this will improve patient care as health professionals use our algorithms to maintain knowledge that is critically important but infrequently used. For this reason, personalized knowledge management platforms like Gunner Training must play a large role in future medical education,” remarks Dr. Lau. Current users say GunnerTraining. com helps them remember what they learn, perform well in school, score higher on licensing exams, and spend less time relearning what they would otherwise forget. One user considers it “just perfect.” Although Gunner Training is currently targeted to first and second year medical students, the company is rapidly building new products to assist residents, attending physicians, and other health professionals seeking to perform well in school and on standardized examinations, and, more importantly, to provide exceptional medical care.
About Medical Learning Systems:
Founded by Harvard-trained physicians and based on cutting-edge learning and memory science, Medical Learning Systems provides personalized online education and exam preparation services to health professionals and students. Medical Learning System’s flagship product – Gunner Training (launched Q2 2009) – is already helping hundreds of students master Step 1 of the US Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE).
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