adelaidemedblog

This is bound to be controversial because regardless of what I write here, someone is going to disagree and with very good reason. Oh well, so be it. I guess I could also write this as “How to be a complete jerk in PBL and still have the tutor like you.” In fact I take no responsibility whatsoever for the contents of this post, though I did come up with it, and I did type it. For any staff members out there that might want to fail me: This is a joke. Obviously. Take it at face value, I’m a very stressed medical student with a bit of a sadistic sense of humour and please don’t fail me thanks.

Last year I managed to survive through PBL with a lot of study. This does work, but I think this year I’ve found a much easier way to do PBL, such that my tutor thinks I have reached “above expected competency” when I really haven’t done that much. In fact, I have brought no notes whatsoever to PBL this year, a habit continued from semester two of last year. Apologies in advance to my PBL buddies, who I am sure have borne the brunt of this. More this year.

This is how - I’ve split this into two sections, the first being how to show you are competent without having the necessary knowledge base, and secondly, how to not contribute without making it completely apparent that you do not have the knowledge base:

How to show your competency:

1. Speak up. Nothing says “partially demonstrated” (i.e. fail) like a person who just sits in PBL and stares at their notes (if they have them). Even if it’s just asking the person who is speaking about something they just said, which requires close to no knowledge base at all on your part, and yet gets the tutor noticing that you are “analysing the information” given to you = gold star.

2. Know the PBL process. Lucky for me, this got drilled into me last year. I am under the impression that everyone has access to a PBL handbook available on the MLTU. Make sure your group sticks to this somewhat - one of the things i’m really specific about in PBL is the difference between a hypothesis and a significance (you know, in that table that has “data points -> significance -> hypotheses) - basically, if something “could” be (as opposed to “definitely is”) something, it’s a hypothesis. A significance is the reason why you are putting the data point on the board in the first place. Any questions/investigations from then on in should test a hypothesis.

Again, minimal knowledge base - yet, you can get up and be the board scribe more often (often = brownie points) and sometimes direct the group too. It’s also really difficult to be the board scribe and not look like you are interacting. Interaction is good.

3. Be picky. This is yet another reason to talk, it’s also good evidence of “good comprehension” and “good reasoning” even if it isn’t really as relevant as you might think. Stuff like missed relevant information or very unlikely hypotheses are things you can be really picky about. Systemic lupus erythematosus is very rare. It’s even rarer in men. On the other hand, it can cause a vast array of symptoms. Never miss an opportunity to give a random differential that something could be. Like lupus. Pain? Lupus. Fever? Lupus. Or it could just be influenza.

How to hide your incompetency:

4. Bring food. And be the first to open it in a moment of awkward (read: everyone is stumped or doesn’t know what to say) silence. This almost certainly guarantees that you will not have to be the next person to talk, because you have food and you are about to put it in your mouth, and it’s rude to talk with food in your mouth. This can work very well if it is something you can share too, because then you can offer it to someone else and they won’t have to talk either. Or, brownie points if you offer it to your tutor.

5. Take toilet breaks. I usually go once in that two hour session of PBL. Never twice unless you have an inflammatory bowel disease (which I suspect I do but knowing me, I probably don’t, because I also suspected that I had ADD and depression and angina and diabetes mellitus at some point too. Who knows, maybe I have lupus?) Take these opportunistically. Especially when someone has started on a mechanism on the board which you know nothing about. (If you do know something about it, take the opportunity to contribute and show the tutor that you have the knowledge base that you don’t necessarily have.) The mechanism will be done by the time you come back. Usually.

6. Make sure you get your fair share of paper scribing. If you are a guy and have artistic legible flowing handwriting, or, if you are a girl, all the better for the group, because then the notes will actually be readable. Even better if you can spell hepaticocholangiocholecystenterostomy when it’s been written on the board as hepat——–c——–omy (usually by a male board scribe writing fast). It means a whole session of just copying down what is on the board, which requires no thinking and no knowledge base. Never do this in consecutive sessions without a reason (yes, I have actually found a “reason” to do this which did work and was logical).

7. Shoot people down with a bit of reasoning. This requires a bit of knowledge actually, but done well, it can make you seem like you know a lot more. Like: “hmmm, I think it’s not lupus…! This is supposed to be, like a respiratory case? Plus the patient is a man in his late 50’s…”
close to no knowledge whatsoever except that which you have off the sheet and the common sense that what you are doing in lectures is *probably* related somehow.
N.B. Be nice though. “Good differential though I guess, lupus, though unlikely, could present like this. Where do you know this stuff from?”

I hope you never actually need to do this to do well in PBL. You should actually do work and learn stuff for exams. But, if the MLTU gives us lemons, we can grow a lemon plantation and make batteries to power electric typewriters for monkeys, and given enough typewriters and enough monkeys, we can come up to the answer to everything, which has to be worth at least an Non Graded Pass for PBL.