BACKGROUND: With the incidence of skin cancers continuing to increase, traditional clerkships may not be sufficient to teach medical students important detection and management skills. OBJECTIVE: We performed a randomized study to determine the efficacy of the online curriculum, eDerm. METHOD: Students were randomized to complete eDerm before or after clerkship (arm 1 vs 2) and were tested at 3 time points, including at baseline. The crossover design examined eDerm and clerkship, and the sequential effect of both. RESULTS: In all, 252 participants completed all interventions and testing. Diagnosis and management scores significantly improved in both arms (P < .001; P < .001), reflecting increased scores after taking both eDerm and clerkship. eDerm after clerkship resulted in the highest improvement in diagnosis (P = .005), and eDerm improved the detection of melanoma significantly better than clerkship (malignant, P < .001; pigmented, P < .001). LIMITATIONS: We did not perform delayed testing of medical students for learning retention. CONCLUSION: eDerm significantly improves the diagnosis and management of nonpigmented and pigmented skin lesions by medical students. It can be used as an alternative to a traditional 2-week clerkship if one is not available. Importantly, melanoma detection improved significantly more after eDerm than clerkship. When used as a supplement, eDerm administered after a clerkship will result in the highest level of overall learning.
RCT Entities:
BACKGROUND: With the incidence of skin cancers continuing to increase, traditional clerkships may not be sufficient to teach medical students important detection and management skills. OBJECTIVE: We performed a randomized study to determine the efficacy of the online curriculum, eDerm. METHOD: Students were randomized to complete eDerm before or after clerkship (arm 1 vs 2) and were tested at 3 time points, including at baseline. The crossover design examined eDerm and clerkship, and the sequential effect of both. RESULTS: In all, 252 participants completed all interventions and testing. Diagnosis and management scores significantly improved in both arms (P < .001; P < .001), reflecting increased scores after taking both eDerm and clerkship. eDerm after clerkship resulted in the highest improvement in diagnosis (P = .005), and eDerm improved the detection of melanoma significantly better than clerkship (malignant, P < .001; pigmented, P < .001). LIMITATIONS: We did not perform delayed testing of medical students for learning retention. CONCLUSION: eDerm significantly improves the diagnosis and management of nonpigmented and pigmented skin lesions by medical students. It can be used as an alternative to a traditional 2-week clerkship if one is not available. Importantly, melanoma detection improved significantly more after eDerm than clerkship. When used as a supplement, eDerm administered after a clerkship will result in the highest level of overall learning.