Workplace Based Learning (WBL): An Effective Learning Modality during Orthopaedics Surgical Clerkship: Students' Perspective.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the student's perspective about educational and training efficacy of workplace based learning (WBL) during surgical clerkship in Orthopaedics amongst 4th and 5th year medical students. STUDY DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. Place and Duration of the Study: Department of General Surgery, Shifa Tameer-e-Millat University, Islamabad, from September 2020 to December 2021. METHODOLOGY: The inclusion criteria was fourth and final year MBBS students who had completed their orthopaedic surgery mini-clerkship. The exclusion criteria was medical students who did not attend the orthopaedics clerkship in the study period. The research instrument was a questionnaire based on the principles of experiential based learning. The participants were sent an online questionnaire as well as a consent form through e-mail. The responses were recorded and analysed for descriptive statistics. RESULTS: From the target group, 140 responses were received, 94 students (67%) expressed that workplace environment was conducive to learning and 98 (70%) agreed that their diagnostic and management skills further developed following exposure to the orthopaedic workplace. A short duration of 2 weeks served as a hindrance with 53 (38%) of students expressing that they were not able to effectively inculcate all concepts within that limited time-frame. Moreover, 52 (37.5%) students described limited patient's clerking time. CONCLUSION: Though majority of students were satisfied with teaching and learning strategies, design and implementation of the curriculum at the orthopaedics department; yet, there were significant limitations requiring further evaluation and cooperation by both students and faculty in order to establish ecosystem focusing on experiential learning. KEY WORDS: Orthopaedics, Workplace based learning (WBL), Student, Clerkship, Learning environment.

An Extensive Review on Preclinical and Clinical Trials of Oncolytic Viruses Therapy for Pancreatic Cancer.

Chemotherapy resistance and peculiar tumor microenvironment, which diminish or mitigate the effects of therapies, make pancreatic cancer one of the deadliest malignancies to manage and treat. Advanced immunotherapies are under consideration intending to ameliorate the overall patient survival rate in pancreatic cancer. Oncolytic viruses therapy is a new type of immunotherapy in which a virus after infecting and lysis the cancer cell induces/activates patients' immune response by releasing tumor antigen in the blood. The current review covers the pathways and molecular ablation that take place in pancreatic cancer cells. It also unfolds the extensive preclinical and clinical trial studies of oncolytic viruses performed and/or undergoing to design an efficacious therapy against pancreatic cancer.