Essential Clinical Cancer Genetics Internet Curriculum

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The revolution in cancer genetics has changed clinical practice for at-risk populations. Physicians are ill equipped to provide up-to-date cancer genetic information to their patients due to a lack of education and experience. In order to improve the education of future physicians in their formative years of instruction, we will develop a dynamic multimedia electronic curriculum at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) School of Medicine. The goal of the project is to produce a unique electronic-based cancer genetics medical school curriculum, entitled Essentials of Clinical Cancer Genetics. It will provide up-to-date, clinically relevant information regarding the principles of cancer genetics, their application to clinical practice, genetic counseling, and patient care as well as addressing ethical, legal and social issues inherent in counseling for cancer genetics. The Essentials will be a stand-alone course imbedded and supported by the Internet-based CWRU School of Medicine integrated electronic curriculum (IEC) and will be easily accessible to students in medicine, nursing, genetic counseling, genetics and other related fields. In the future, the curriculum would be available to others in a CD-ROM format. The specific aims of the project are fourfold and form the foundation of an interdisciplinary teaching approach to provide students with an understanding of the complex human problem of clinical cancer genetics: 1) to expand and refine specific learning objectives and content for each unit of an innovative Internet-based clinical cancer genetics curriculum for medical and other health professional students: 2) to refine and revise the existing pilot Essentials Internet site and develop and produce illustrations, animations, and clinical case studies for each unit of the Essentials curriculum; 3) to develop and produce genetic counseling video clips for each unit of the Essentials curriculum that will illustrate the ethical, legal and social complexities of a cancer genetics clinical evaluation; and 4) to evaluate the effect of the Essentials curriculum on medical students' mastery of the learning objectives. Our approach is unique in that it will be the first Internet-based clinical cancer genetics course for medical students and will emphasize in "real time" via video clips, complex counseling issues surrounding counseling for cancer genetics.