Developing and analysing a curriculum map in Occupational- and Environmental Medicine

Background: During the last 5 years a fundamental curriculum reform
was realized at the medical school of the Ludwig Maximilians
University. In contrast to those efforts, the learning objectives
were not defined consistently for the curriculum and important
questions concerning the curriculum could not be answered. This
also applied to Occupational and Environmental Medicine where
teachers of both courses were faced with additional problems such
as the low number of students attending the lectures. The aims of
the study were to develop and analyse a curriculum map for
Occupational and Environmental Medicine based on learning
objectives using a web-based database. Furthermore we aimed to
evaluate student perception about the curricular structure.
Methods: Using a web-based learning objectives database, a
curriculum map for Occupational and Environmental Medicine was
developed and analysed. Additionally online evaluations of students
for each course were conducted. Results: The results show a
discrepancy between the taught and the assessed curriculum. For
both curricula, we identified that several learning objectives were
not covered in the curriculum. There were overlaps with other
content domains and redundancies within both curricula. 53% of the
students in Occupational Medicine and 43% in Environmental Medicine
stated that there is a lack of information regarding the learning
objectives of the curriculum. Conclusions: The results of the
curriculum mapping and the poor evaluation results for the courses
suggest a need for re-structuring both curricula.