An application-based, experiential learning course in clinical cardiology: faculty and student perspectives

Recent reports describe a cultural shift in the average American's perception of the value of higher education. Additionally, and possibly as a consequence of this shifting perception, college enrollments have decreased in recent years. One major element identified in students' perception of college education is whether or not they receive career preparation. In facilitating career preparedness, many instructors have turned to experiential learning opportunities in the form of internships, laboratory-based courses, and simulations. In this article, we describe an experiential learning course for undergraduate and graduate human physiology students in clinical cardiology skills, including electrocardiography, auscultation, manual blood pressure measurement, and cardiac ultrasonography. Student and instructor perspectives were solicited, and four student and one faculty perspectives are included from the author team as qualitative evidence of the efficacy of the described course in preparing students for a variety of jobs with tangible clinical measurement skills. We describe here our perspective that this course enhanced critical thinking, subjective knowledge in cardiology, and application of cardiac principles to measurement techniques and fostered confidence in translating classroom knowledge to the workforce.<b>NEW & NOTEWORTHY</b> This article is a novel, highly descriptive interrogation of students' subjective perceptions of the value of clinically relevant experiences learning cardiovascular measurement techniques as a way to foster career preparedness. We demonstrate that experiential learning courses foster not only skill building but self-confidence in physiology students.