by Claudia Sommer
The case-based workshop is a new format of teaching available during the EAN congress, and it has already become very popular. While preparing this workshops requires considerable prerequisite work from the presenters, attendees will have a high level educational experience.
A maximum of 60 people can attend. Both junior and more senior clinicians are invited to take part, and will be required to state their level of training and experience in the field at the time of registering. The idea is to take advantage of the potential for learning from peers as well as from the experts facilitating the sessions. Preparatory reading material will be sent out in advance.
The room will be set to facilitate group work, for example with tables/stations with up to 20 seats each. More senior and more junior participants will be mixed at the tables. After an introduction, the chairperson will instruct each group on their task. There will be other experts, walking between groups, facilitating the case work, and ensuring that all tables/stations are making progress. Usually, there will be a summary session at the end.
So, what happens at the tables/stations?
First of all, participants get an opportunity to introduce themselves to each other. Each group will then receive a document with 2-4 clinical case scenarios and 1-2 key questions for each case. The group will work on these key questions by discussion. Additional material, e.g. results of investigations, may be made available. The chairpersons may decide on the precise agenda. One option is that several groups work on one case in parallel, and that the views and ideas are then exchanged with the whole group after, for example, 30 minutes of work, when a buzzer will mark the time. Another option would be that different aspects of one case are worked on by the different groups, and that this work is then passed on from one group to the next. Or again, each group might work on a different, but similar case, and the lessons from these cases would then be shared in the summary session. As you can probably imagine, each of these formats gives ample room for interaction, for learning, and for fun! You may even make friends or find new a collaborator at one of these tables.
Since the case based workshops are explicitly for junior and senior neurologists likewise, they are not strictly classified as level 1, 2, or 3 as the other types of courses, although the chairpersons decided about the level, and had them labelled when the courses were initially submitted. You will have to decide individually, what level a certain subject will be for you, according to your own subspecialty and level of training.
An example of a case based workshop in Amsterdam will be “Indomethacin Responsive Headaches-when to use and not to use?” There will be case examples of indomethacin responsive and non-responsive headaches to work on; there will be examples of proper and improper use of the drug, and participants will learn how to manage a patient with side effects.
Another example is “Stroke and Infections”. Many of you will know the situation that you have patients on your stroke-unit, who soon after admission are affected by a pneumonia, potentially due to aspiration in the pre-hospital phase. However, infections may also cause stroke, or strokes may complicate infections of the nervous systems. These will be challenging cases to work on!
If you take part in a case-based workshop in Amsterdam, do let us and the presenters know what you liked and disliked. Moreover, if you have any suggestions for improvement of this novel EAN-format, do let us know!
List of all Case-based workshops during the 3rd EAN congress in Amsterdam, June 24-27, 2017:
Saturday, 24 June 2017
CbW 1: Localising and lateralising seizure onset from ictal phenomenology
CbW 2: Indomethacin responsive headaches – when to use and not to use?
Sunday, 25 June 2017
CbW 3: MDS-ES/EAN: Device aided treatment of Parkinson’s disease: which treatment to choose?
CbW 4: Stroke and infections
Monday, 26 June 2017
CbW 5: Unusual clinical presentations, interesting diagnostic findings and potential therapeutic solutions
CbW 6: MDS-ES/EAN: Refining diagnosis: atypical parkinsonian disorders and genetic and non-genetic choreas
Tuesday, 27 June 2017
CbW 07: How far should we push interventions in neurocritical care?
CbW 08: MDS-ES/EAN: From chronic migraine to dystonia
