‘Who wants to be a neurologist?’ An undergraduate quiz (2008)

Context and setting The Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) curriculum in Singapore allows for a 1-month elective posting at the end of Year 4. Why the idea was necessary Undergraduates often find the subject of neurology difficult, intimidating and inadequately taught in the undergraduate curriculum. Competitive quizzes have not been described in undergraduate neurology teaching programmes. We aimed to teach and demystify neurology using a team-based quiz competition. What was done We organised a competitive quiz at the end of the elective, called ‘Who wants to be a neurologist?’, after a television game show, and hosted by 2 neurologists experienced in undergraduate teaching. The undergraduates were divided into 4 teams with 5 or 6 students in each. Ten multiple-choice questions were put to the teams. These questions were deliberately structured to require a 2-step thinking process to arrive at the answer. The first step required identifying the physical sign or making the diagnosis based on an image or video clip. The second step involved relating the condition to a well known figure in history, sports or pop culture, often with a humorous slant. For example, to answer 1 question, students were required to recognise anterograde amnesia and then to link it to the cartoon character Dory from the movie Finding Nemo. Another question showed a video clip of the actor Michael J Fox, and linked it to Parkinson’s disease and dyskinesias. Teams were allowed to discuss the answers and the first team to press the buzzer answered first. If the first team failed to answer correctly, a second team was allowed to attempt an answer. Points were added or deducted based on correct or incorrect answers. After each question, the neurologists summarised the key neurology learning point underpinning the question. The whole quiz took 45–50 minutes; the winning team received a trophy and a digital photograph of the team with the trophy. Evaluation of results and impact A total of 47 undergraduates from 2 elective cohorts provided evaluation data. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. All respondents (100%) replied affirmatively when asked if the quiz helped them learn neurology in a fun and interesting way. The majority (95.7%) felt that the level of difficulty of the 2-step questions was appropriate, whereas 4.3% felt the questions were too easy; no undergraduates considered the questions too difficult. A significant minority (40.4%) felt the quiz was too short and the rest (59.6%) felt the duration was appropriate; no-one felt it was too long. When asked to rate the elective in terms of how willing they would be to recommend it to fellow undergraduates in the future, students gave it a mean score of 4.87 and a median score of 5.00 on a 5-point Likert scale. Student comments were positive: ‘fun and entertaining end to a posting’; ‘very funny’; ‘terribly entertaining’, and ‘good way to end the elective’. Overall, the responses suggest that by using a quiz competition, allowing for team discussion, and adding a humorous, non-medical element to the questions, it is possible to teach neurology in a less intimidating manner and to make learning neurology enjoyable for undergraduates.