ECGxperts – Improving Skills in ECG Diagnostics and Developing Medical Teaching
The initiative EKGxperts at the University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) has set itself the task of teaching students of medicine in the diagnostics of Electrocardiograms (ECGs). As this medical core competency is often not trained sufficiently during the course of study, the project organizes extra-curricular courses in the Peer-Teaching-Format, i. e. the courses are held by students for students. Here the participants can improve their capabilities and accuracy in the diagnostics of ECGs. The participation is free of charge and open to students of medicine in at least their fourth semester.
Research on the optimization of teaching methods
Apart from the practical teaching, the student research group which is led by the two medical students Ragnar Rabe and Sinan Aydin also has a scientific goal: the improvement of teaching of ECG by using modern techniques of analysis. The Eye-Tracking-Technology plays an important role, which facilitates the recording and evaluation of the eye movement of the students during the ECG-Interpretation. Thus, it can be visualized to which areas of an ECGs special attention is paid and how the viewing strategies differ depending on the experience of the learners.
Targeted training programs are supposed to optimize the viewing patterns, so that the students will increasingly ignore irrelevant information and concentrate on essential diagnostic characteristics. These insights are supposed to help to refine the didactics in electrocardiography.
Evaluation and knowledge transfer
In order to evaluate the success of the course, the participants fill in standardized questionnaires before and after the courses, which document changes in their self-assessment inter alia. The results do not only serve the improvement of the courses at the UKE, but will be processed and made available for other universities.
Perspectives and further development
On the long run, the EKGxperts intends to establish the Peer-Teaching as a sustainable teaching format and develop further practice-orientated teaching offers.
Student research group
- Sinan Aydin
- Ragnar Rabe
- Greta Böer
- David Pham
- Maxim Popov
- Samuel Lewirt
- Khaled Kedelo
- Ali Abedini
- Aschkan Akbari
- Julika Heinemeier
- Clara Eisenberg
- Jenna Wandtke
- Richard Lampe
- Vanessa Obuchov
- Lawrence Pang