NONPF 39th Annual Meeting
The virtual community of Dusonburgh is populated by faculty developed individual and family characters. Character biographies, featuring medical and social histories, are housed in our online course management system (Blackboard). Community maps and a windshield survey are also available. Faculty use or adapt available materials to suit the concept being taught. Adapted materials are added to the site (after approval by faculty) so that the repository is endlessly malleable to the needs of any course or instructor.
In the past, case studies were introduced on the discussion board but the additional richness of details afforded by Dusonburgh allow us to integrate the complexities of social and environmental factors. Through the community, students are provided with rich characters whose individual social and medical backgrounds are introduced via discussion board. We added photographs to provide a visual representation beyond text and plan to add audio interviews using MP3 files.
Because individual characters are members of a virtual community, students can explore complex social and environmental issues that may affect an individual’s ability to manage their own healthcare. The community provides a context to explore challenges of access to care and health policy efficiently as well as environmental issues affecting the health of the community.
Our poster will highlight the use of Dusonburgh to teach concepts for differential diagnoses. Specifically, we will present an example of how we use one of the families in Dusonburgh to teach the primary objective of physical assessment while layering in the importance of exploring genetic family history.
