Evaluation of a training program for medical students for enhancing their searching skills pertaining to clinical scenarios

*With time, medical information has exploded. Information is available through electronic sources. However, it is not possible for an individual to go through all the sources of information. Meanwhile, patients have become ‘tech savvy’ and information is available to them as well on their fingertips. This has necessitated medical professionals of the future to be aware of methods to access the updated clinically relevant information available through the internet, and provide contextually relevant appropriate and accurate information of the patients in clinical practice. Formulating a concise search questions, making efficient searches, interpreting the answers and providing answers in an understandable manner is an important skill for the medical students. As of now, the medical curriculum in India does not have a provision for teaching students for making efficient searches for clinically relevant scenarios, though such a skill is likely to be useful in clinical practice subsequently. Thus, there is a necessity to develop training modules for making more effective searches and test them on available parameters.  The present study would be a single group pre-post design wherein medical students would be taught about enhancing clinically oriented searches.Medical students (3rd year and above), aged 18 years and above, willing to participate would be taught in workshop format. Theprimary outcome measure would be confidence in the ability to provide answers to clinical scenarios (rated on a visual analogue scale of 1 to 10).*Acceptability of workshop; Feasibility of conduct and issues encountered would be the secondary outcome measures.