At UC Irvine School of Medicine, we have provided our second year medical students with a digital medical microbiology lab manual. Since medical microbiology is an image intense course, Jon Kevan (University of Hawaii) and I took the advantage of the iBook platform to create a laboratory manual with 13 separate exercises.

Our iBook includes protocols with accompanying videos so that students can view proper lab technique prior to entering the lab (Ex. Gram stain and steps to properly focus a microscope). There are numerous images throughout the exercises that familiarize the students with what they “should” see after culturing organisms on specific media, conducting tests and preparing stained slides. It is also useful that students easily review these images at their convenience after completing the lab exercises. We have also incorporated Prezis within the iBook that emphsize the clinical relevance of selected exercises. One Prezi includes includes a clinician discussing the clinical relevance of MRSA (Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus) while students learn the attributes of Spectra MRSA chrome agar.

In order to maintain digital continuity, students complete a “Results” section by accessing an embedded link to each lab-specific exercise posted our UC Irvine learning management system (Electronic Educational Environment, EEE). Students enter their data as well as answer lab and clinically related questions. These questions can include images– another opportunity for students to test their recognition of images of microorganisms. We have found reviewing the work of the students has become paperless and substantially more efficient.

Since each of the medical students have been provided with an iPad, each student brings his/her own iPad into the lab. The students protect the iPad by putting it into plastic bag (Fischer Scientific) that is discarded at the end of the exercise. Our lab is quite busy/crowded with 100+ students; a bonus of the iBook format is the elimination of notebooks and extraneous paper protocols cluttering the lab bench. The three lab teaching assistants have been provided iPads with the iBook. These SOM owned iPads are also used in the anatomy lab. Fortuitously, these two labs do not overlap and we can maximize the use of institutional iPads.

We surveyed our students and found 95% of them preferred the iBook to a printed format. We also received some good suggestions to make the iBook better next year. However, many responses had the same sentiment as the following- “I love it! It is all within one mobile, data-collecting resource–the iPad. We can access the internet easily when we have problems. Also, the pictures have been designed so pleasantly on the screen; very interactive.”