AbalaTips 101: Family and Community Medicine --> ACTIVE LEARNING

Good day everyone, welcome sa AbalaTips, now I will discuss how to approach the subject of Family and Community Medicine, this usually involve the following topics 

• Introduction to Medicine
• Family Medicine and Community Medicine I, II, III
• Research
• Bioethics, Ethics, Clinical Bioethics
• Biostatistics
• Evidence Based Medicine

**Everything that will be discussed here will be about the all subjects in particular since on ACTIVE LEARNING APPROACH, they will have the same denominator in terms of how to approach this subject 

A, This AbalaTip is not intended to invalidate or to mention that your learning method is wrong, but rather this is a guide and to emphasize the advantages of active learning in medical school

B. Take note this will involve the correlation of two topics of my blog which is Visual Learning and Active Learning, however those two will only be applied to this blog and other subjects discussed individually as well. If you do not read those blogs, I would suggest you read those two blogs first before reading those since it will give you a hands-on application of blog. Pls click the title on the post below to read more about those blogs

1. Visual Learning sa Philippine Medical Schools- ni Dok Juan Abalahin  

2. AbalaTips 101: Active Learning Strategies in Philippine Medical Schools

Again as shown in the Active Learning Strategies blog, the goal is to retain at least from 50-90% information as much as for you to apply what you had learned in your medical school, this will be again the Pyramid of learning

Let us modify it in terms of what we are really doing in medical schools as medical students

Taken and Modified from Education corner

Personal experience is that learning of Family and Community Medicine starts from 20-30% which is reading your transes or textbook if applicable. but there is an approach to make this higher to 90% which is UNDERSTAND and COMMON SENSE, I capitalized and bold it for emphasis that this is the best weapon that you can use for this subject, since from 30% once understand you can apply the 70-90% in the figure use illustrations also (for example, the triad of transmission of infectious diseases, family life cycle), use of tables (ex. Individual vs Community Medicine), 

For the Research, apply what is the use of that principle and that study, use of illustration will be preferrable for example the pyramid of the reliability of evidence in a study, the types of study. Bullet form will also be enough, for application such as doing the research or thesis proper, apply the concepts as this is also part of your active learning. 

In relation to the research is the Evidence Based Medicine, here you wil learn about Sensitivity, Specificity, difference on how to evaluate of the validity of the study, aside from doing the active learning from the list in one of the blog, apply also in real life such as reviewing a research done is also part of the active learning process

So the process involve in the following is

• Use diagrams or bullets
• Write and Draw frequently
• Work with friends
• Fill information gaps
• Create and immersion environment- apply what you had learned
• COMMON SENSE, UNDERSTAND, and APPLY THE CONCEPTS- most important

For Epidemiology and Biostastics, the common denominator that will add is that there will now be involvement of formulas that will be used, suggestion, rewrite the formulas in an index card or notebook handwritten (same principle as Pharmacology where you will write it in handwritten format), so that muscle memory will work out as well thus making it easier for you to understand the subject

So overall understanding if applied the concepts written here, it will make it easier to grasp the concepts of Family and Community Medicine, which will make it easier to be applied when at the exams and clinics