IMPACT OF AN INFORMATION RETRIEVAL AND MANAGEMENT CURRICULUM ON MEDICAL STUDENT CITATIONS

Evidence-based medicine has been increasingly integrated into medical training. However, most efforts have focused on skills, such as critical appraisal of literature, rather than information retrieval and management (IRAM) skills, which first-year medical students often lack. The medical faculty and academic librarians at the University of California San Francisco collaboratively introduced an innovative curriculum to teach and promote information retrieval and management skills within a problem-based learning (PBL) context. In 2006-2007, we implemented an IRAM skills workshop and librarian visits to PBL small groups. In 2007-2008, we continue only the skills workshop. This Study was to evaluate the effectiveness and impact of this IRAM curriculum for first-year medical students. We assessed the outcome of student application of IRAM skills to PBL learning issues (LI) across three years: control year, year with workshop only, and year with workshop plus librarian visits. Students participated in five PBL cases, generated six Us per student, and completed evaluations of the librarian visits, We compared the citations from students' Us. Results showed that the workshop plus visits group Submitted fewer Us without citations (9.3%) compared to the control group (14.0%) and the workshop only group (11.0%). The full curriculum also had more citations with complete documentation (64.9%) compared to the workshop only group (61.0%) and the control group (14.0%). While the full IRAM Curriculum was effective in improving student IRAM skills, faculty and student satisfaction was low for the librarian visits (2.79 and 2.96 on a 5-point scale, 5 being best).