Thalidomide memorial activity: pedagogies of creativity, joy and immersion in medical education

Although medical education has advanced rapidly over the past few decades, literature reveals lack of interest and curiosity of students in medical classrooms. Considering this, one of the major prerequisites in medical education is to, encourage the use of creative and novel pedagogies in medical curriculum. An educational intervention study with a post-test only design was conducted at a medical school in Western India. The study involved 150 s-year MBBS students and utilized a student-centric “Thalidomide Memorial” activity. The intervention included the creation of multimodal physical and digital exhibits—such as plaques, 3D models, posters, collages, short films, and narratives—to teach drug safety and pharmacovigilance. Data were collected from 125 participants (83.3% response rate) using a validated feedback questionnaire (Kirkpatrick Level1) and a post-event knowledge test (Kirkpatrick Level 2). On the basis of Kirkpatrick’s model level 1, student perceptions on the making of Thalidomide Memorial (Based on a 5-point Likert scale) revealed “Excellent” to very good ratings for most of the components i.e. Narratives (83.8%), Poster making (82.7%), History and Timeline of events (80.8%), Trigger film (80.8%), Newspaper clippings (80.8%), Clinical trial models (79.8%), Drug alert Posters (76.9%), and Thalidomide memorial plaques (75%). Kirkpatrick’s model level 2 evaluation on a 10-item post-event knowledge test indicated that the mean scores were 8.14 out of 10 with a median score of 8.0. Analysis of the individual scores exhibits that 94 students (75.2%) scored 8 or higher on the test. Analysis yielded an Odds Ratio (OR) of 6.41, indicating that students who rated the activity as “Excellent” were over six times more likely to be “Good Performers” (score 8–10) than those who rated it lower. Moreover, Cramer’s value denoted a moderate relationship between student performance and feedback for the overall event. Thus, this study demonstrates the first 2 levels of Kirkpatrick’s model displaying the perceptions and occurrence of learning and knowledge acquisition. This study also demonstrates the effective application of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles—Engagement, Representation, and Expression—in medical education. Overall this creative approach helped students identify and understand key elements of drug safety and ethical issues in an interesting way. In addition, it helped build empathy and critical thinking. Creative teaching-learning methods being the need of hour, can transform medical education, making complex topics more relatable and engaging for medical learners.