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Evaluation of a ophthalmology learning support for handheld computer for medical students

OBJECTIVE: In the last decade the handheld computers have been popularized among health professionals, on the USA, for instance, among 60-70% of medical students already use them. Make clinical information available on these devices can aid teaching medical practices, however, the way they are structured may influence students' satisfaction and learning. The purpose of this paper is to present MDFluxo evaluation, a program developed in handheld computers to aid ophthalmology teaching. METHODS: The program was developed with structured flowcharts extracted from The Ophthalmology Guide book. The assessment was placed comparing 20 medical under-graduating students' performance solving clinical cases aided by the program, a book, or no material. RESULTS: The results shown that the performance of students in the evaluation with book was equivalent to MDFluxo in etiology (p <0.01) and conduct (p <0.05) on clinical cases solving and better performance than without the use any material. CONCLUSION: On MDFluxo user satisfaction evaluation 82.5% of students approved it's use on clinical case solving.

Computers, handheld; Medical students; Ophthalmology; Employee performance appraisal


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