Overview of WeChat platform
WeChat is a free application that provides instant messaging services for mobile smart terminals. It was launched by Tencent on January 21, 2011. On this basis, Tencent launched the WeChat public platform. Through streaming media sharing, enterprises, groups and individuals can push graphics, voice, video and other content to achieve real-time communication with users. The popularity of WeChat, as well as the immediacy, privacy, and variety of its content, make it a huge educational potential. In recent years, educators at various medical institutions of higher learning have continuously explored the application of WeChat in medical teaching, involving internal medicine, surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, neurology, nursing and many other subjects, case discussion, medical record writing, etc. [6]. However, these reforms are mainly based on WeChat's group chat, circle of friends and other functions. There is less exploration on the application of WeChat public platform to medical education, especially the standardized training of surgical residents. This article uses the public account of "PUMC training in teaching" as an example to explore the application of WeChat public platform in surgical training.
The "PUMC standardized surgical trainingWeChat public account is a subscription number created by the Peking Union Medical College Hospital Surgery. It was created in December 2017. It has published nearly a hundred medical-related articles and nearly 1,000 subscribers, covering all the students in our hospital, and radiated to the surgical training outside the hospital. Each quarter, the teaching team and the public accountant of the Peking Union Medical College Hospital determine the teaching theme, and publish solicitations for the teaching staff of this hospital and outside hospitals. The returned manuscripts are reviewed by the teaching team and published by the public account management team. After reading and learning in Pearson, our college forwarded it in the circle of friends or WeChat group to complete the study and check-in and promotion.
WeChat platform’s importance in surgical teaching
Surgery is a special discipline in medicine, which integrates theoretical knowledge, clinical operation, interpersonal communication, and teamwork. Its complexity and comprehensiveness place high demands on surgery teaching and also bring greater challenges— — the traditional education model is gradually unable to meet the teaching needs of surgery, and educators must constantly seek new and more applicable education models and teaching platforms. The popularity of WeChat, as well as the immediacy, privacy, and variety of its content, make it a huge educational potential. According to the feedback results of the questionnaire (see supplement), it can be seen that most doctors in training support the application of the teaching platform, and the teaching response is good. We believe that the WeChat public platform has the following advantages for the training of surgical residents.
The advantages of WeChat Platform over teaching platforms in western countries.
In western countries, they also provide many learning platforms for clinical students. Although the learning platforms in western countries cover most functions that WeChat platform provides, there are absolute advantages of WeChat platform over western countries’ platforms[7–9]. First of all, WeChat platform is easy to spread. In China, the use of WeChat is ubiquitous. Every surgical resident use WeChat in his or her daily work and study to communicate with each other. Since people are familiar with WeChat, it’s easier to accept WeChat platform. For example, the Kahoot® gamification program used in Finland must operate on a computer[9] and is unavailable on the phone. In comparison, the WeChat platform can operate on cellphone, which provides a lot more convenience for surgical residents to study during their spare time. Second, using WeChat platform don’t have to download new applications in cell phone. Downloading new applications not only occupy a lot of space in cell phone, but also take time to get familiar with it. Third, unlike online courses in western countries, using WeChat platform can skip the cumbersome steps for creating new account. In western countries, students must create an account on the online teaching platforms to use websites and discussion boards [10]. However, the WeChat platform can skip this step since surgical residents already has a WeChat account of his or her own. Since the WeChat platform is relied on WeChat, the login information is defaulted as the WeChat account.
The advantages of WeChat platform over traditional teaching mode
Diversity
In surgical learning, we must not only master a wealth of theoretical knowledge, but also cultivate skilled clinical operations. Therefore, surgical teaching needs to have rich content and diverse teaching forms to meet the learning needs of students, which is difficult to achieve through traditional books and classrooms [11]. For example, the operation video is played in the classroom for auxiliary teaching, and the students sitting in the back row cannot concentrate because they cannot see the focus in the video. The time in the classroom is limited, and the teacher ’s teaching must be biased, which leads to insufficient breadth and depth of knowledge acquired by the students in the classroom. In contrast, the variety of content and forms pushed by the WeChat public platform make its teaching potential even better. In terms of content, the "PUMC Regulation Teaching" covers a wide range of contents, ranging from common clinical skills and treatment methods to image reading and doctor experience sharing. Some contents that are commonly used in clinic and focus on attention will be repeated in a review form after a period of time. In terms of form, the WeChat public platform can push messages including graphics, pictures, voices, and texts to users, and video, audio, and animation can be inserted into the graphics messages. When watching videos on personal mobile devices, you can pause and replay at any time when you encounter unclear content, and you can undoubtedly gain more knowledge from the video. For example, after searching for "knotting", a total of 9 graphic messages related to knotting were published from 2017 to the present by "PUMC Specification Training", and 3 of them explained in detail the common methods of suture and knotting in surgery. With pictures and texts, accompanied by video explanations, so that medical students suddenly look bright. Therefore, the students in the experimental group learn through the WeChat public platform, and the clinical operation results are higher. Under this colorful teaching mode, students' learning interest is more intense, and learning autonomy is stronger.
Efficiency
Today's society is moving towards a "fragmented" model. The accelerating social rhythm brings fragmentation of time, and the rapid development of network technology brings fragmentation of information. Junior medical students can still use the complete time module in the classroom to concentrate on the basic knowledge and skills related to surgery, but in the surgical teaching of graduate students and senior doctors, the traditional, complete time module of collective classroom learning is not realistic. WeChat push is usually concise and refined, with a strong focus, and you can get a lot of valuable knowledge points in a short time of reading. Users can collect useful content that they wish to learn, and start learning or reviewing at any time during their free time. For example, we can use WeChat public platform to fully condense the clinical manifestations, auxiliary examinations, diagnosis and treatment of a disease in a short tweet, and medical students can follow up with it. "PUMC Regulation Teaching" is generally pushed from 8 to 9 in the evening, which happens to be a relatively relaxing time for medical workers, who can accept new knowledge in a relaxed and happy mood. Therefore, through the WeChat public platform, the fragmented knowledge is embedded in the fragmented time, making the knowledge transfer process more efficient.
Interactivity
Lack of interaction between teachers and students, students and students is one of the main problems of the LBL teaching model. The teaching models such as PBL, CBL or TBL, which were developed later, paid special attention to this problem, try to arouse the enthusiasm of students and increase the participation of students [12]. During the interaction with the students, teachers can timely understand the students' various doubts and thoughts, and provide supplementary explanation and expansion of knowledge in a more targeted manner. The interaction between students is helpful for thinking collision, experience sharing and mutual learning. WeChat public platform is a natural interactive platform. Subscribers can send messages in the background, and the public account administrator is responsible for sorting and replying to the messages. Both subscribed users and non-subscribed users can leave a message after the original push, and the message processed by the public account administrator ("selected") is visible to everyone. For example, the teaching platform will publish the imaging reading challenge. Users can send their own answers in the background of the public account, and the correct answers and users with correct answers will be announced in the next push. The message at the end of the tweet is an experience exchange platform for medical students and doctors. For example, "The four biggest fears of ICU on duty! Just ask you if you are afraid!" In the article, graduate students and resident doctors told their own experience in the message area, which is just a combination of the summary in the article and practical work practice. In the "case sharing" section, medical students directly shared interesting or difficult cases they encountered during the internship in the form of tweets, and shared their experiences with readers. The "Clinical Speculation" score in the OSCE test of the experimental group is higher, which is inseparable from the exchange of clinical experience.
Immediacy
As a science, it is especially important to keep up with the times. However, the speed of revision of textbooks often cannot keep up with the speed of updating the guidelines, and even less can keep pace with the advancement of basic theories, auxiliary examinations, and treatment methods. As a new media form of teaching, WeChat public platform is very instant. In the "Guide to Download" section, users can find the latest version of the relevant surgical diseases directly or through search. The diagnostic criteria, surgical indications, and treatment recommendations are clear at a glance. This study does not involve the assessment of the knowledge and application of medical frontier knowledge, and further research can be carried out in the future.