Personality Disorders: Self-Learning Module 2015

Abstract The Liaison Committee on Medical Education standards mandate that medical schools identify clinical conditions that students must experience during required clerkships. If a given clerkship site is unable to provide one or more of the required clinical experiences, it is permissible to provide an alternative clinical experience such as a simulated or case-based alternative that parallels the level of student involvement (for example, observation vs. participation in management decisions) specified for the condition. This resource provides a case study of personality disorders and is a self-contained module utilizing Articulate software; it can be viewed on any computer, and the instructor/student can navigate at will through the interactive quizzes, text, and embedded video clips. The video clips demonstrate the evolution of a clinical case from presentation to follow-up over three years. A focus is on differential diagnosis and treatment, with intermittent self-assessment quizzes and references to American Psychiatric Association Practice Guidelines and other evidence-based literature. Rather than providing a comprehensive didactic on personality disorders, this module is intended as a clinical application exercise after medical student completion of the recommended reading. An earlier version of this module has been utilized since 2012 by faculty members of the Association of Directors of Medical Student Education in Psychiatry and others. This new 2015 revision has been updated and somewhat streamlined, and quiz questions have been made more directly relevant to the presented case. Student and faculty feedback on the 2012 module and related psychiatry teaching modules has been obtained by the Clinical Simulation Initiative Task Force of the Association of Directors of Medical Student Education in Psychiatry. Study data demonstrated student satisfaction with the modules and positive impact on students' confidence in disorder-specific knowledge, diagnosis, and treatment.