Background The role of basic science knowledge in clinical diagnosis is unclear. There has
been no experimental demonstration of its value in helping students recall and organize
clinical information. This study examines how causal knowledge may lead to better recall
and diagnostic skill over time. Method Undergraduate medical students learned either four
neurological or rheumatic disorders. One group learned a basic science explanation for the
symptoms. The other learned epidemiological information. Both were then tested with the …

Background We investigated whether learning basic science mechanisms may have
mnemonic value in helping students remember signs and symptoms, in comparison with
learning the relation between symptoms and diagnoses directly. Purpose To compare 2
approaches to learning diagnosis: learning how features of various conditions relate to
underlying pathophysiological mechanisms and learning the conditional probabilities of
features and diseases. Methods Undergraduate students (n= 36) were taught 4 disorders …