Mind Maps for developing diagnostic skills in Oral Medicine

Expert clinicians hold diagnostic pathways in their minds within cognitive structures known as illness scripts. These scripts develop through the re-organisation of existing knowledge following experience, which is a process that takes time. We reasoned that if the early knowledge could be organised and taught in a way aligned to the illness script then this could accelerate the development of diagnostic ability in learners. Therefore, we established a series of mind maps that integrated key elements of the diagnostic pathway. Mind maps were selected as they are a well-established tool to assist with student learning in medical and dental education. Four mind maps will be presented on; oral ulceration, red, white and pigmented patches. The mind maps support the delivery of Oral Medicine undergraduate teaching which is delivered by topics based on a patient complaint rather than simply on the basis of the underlying disease. As students have limited clinical experience in Oral Medicine before they attend the teaching sessions, they need to acquire prior knowledge organised to support the illness scripts we wish to develop so that they can use these structures to facilitate clinical reasoning skills in the case-based scenarios. To address this limited experience, the teaching is delivered using a “flipped classroom” approach with pre-learning delivered in a web-based virtual learning environment. This virtual learning is followed by interactive “face-to-face” sessions in which case-based scenarios are discussed. The feedback on the mind maps from both undergraduate and postgraduate students to date, has been highly supportive and will be presented. Further development of the Oral Ulceration mind map is ongoing with the aim of creating a Progressive Web App to support the diagnosis of oral ulceration in primary care. This project has been awarded funding from the University of Liverpool Dental Alumni Research Bursary.