Abstract
Medical informatics could facilitate more effective analysis and use of clinical knowledge by means of expert systems. To be most effective, such systems should be constructed in a manner which is consistent with physicians' cognitive processes. Our past five years' work with a system called Iliad indicates that it provides effective medical training and education. The current research extends our previous work by using a wider array of training and test cases. We also evaluated whether training on specific cases could generalize to improved testing performance on related cases, which featured similar complaints and pathophysiologic mechanisms, but different final diagnoses. In their junior internal medicine clerkship, students (n = 100) completed 1300 Iliad training cases covering 48 diagnoses. The findings indicated improved problem solving on the specifically trained cases as well as the generalization cases. We discuss a possible training model for expert systems such as Iliad.
Full text
PDF
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- Kassirer J. P., Kopelman R. I. Cognitive errors in diagnosis: instantiation, classification, and consequences. Am J Med. 1989 Apr;86(4):433–441. doi: 10.1016/0002-9343(89)90342-2. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Lincoln M. J., Turner C. W., Haug P. J., Warner H. R., Williamson J. W., Bouhaddou O., Jessen S. G., Sorenson D., Cundick R. C., Grant M. Iliad training enhances medical students' diagnostic skills. J Med Syst. 1991 Feb;15(1):93–110. doi: 10.1007/BF00993883. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Norman G. R., Tugwell P., Feightner J. W., Muzzin L. J., Jacoby L. L. Knowledge and clinical problem-solving. Med Educ. 1985 Sep;19(5):344–356. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2923.1985.tb01336.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Schmidt H. G., Norman G. R., Boshuizen H. P. A cognitive perspective on medical expertise: theory and implication. Acad Med. 1990 Oct;65(10):611–621. doi: 10.1097/00001888-199010000-00001. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]