• Samuel Mark Keim, David Howse, Paul Bracke, and Kathryn Mendoza.
• Department of Emergency Medicine, The University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85724-5057, USA. sam@aemrc.arizona.edu
• Med Teach. 2008 Jan 1; 30 (9-10): 880-4.

BackgroundMedical educators are increasingly faced with directives to teach Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) skills. Because of its nature, integrating fundamental EBM educational content is a challenge in the preclinical years.AimsTo analyse preclinical medical student user satisfaction and feedback regarding a clinical EBM search strategy.MethodsThe authors introduced a custom EBM search option with a self-contained education structure to first-year medical students. The implementation took advantage of a major curricular change towards case-based instruction. Medical student views and experiences were studied regarding the tool's convenience, problems and the degree to which they used it to answer questions raised by case-based instruction.ResultsSurveys were completed by 70% of the available first-year students. Student satisfaction and experiences were strongly positive towards the EBM strategy, especially of the tool's convenience and utility for answering issues raised during case-based learning sessions. About 90% of the students responded that the tool was easy to use, productive and accessed for half or more of their search needs.ConclusionsThis study provides evidence that the integration of an educational EBM search tool can be positively received by preclinical medical students.

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