to solving clinical case scenarios. So team-based learning is widely acknowledged as crucial in medical education, serving to enhance performance and assessments, facilitate retention and application of knowledge. Activities that involve the team-based approach cultivates essential professional skills such as teamwork, leadership, adaptability, and conflict resolution. Collaborative problem solving, particularly in the context of clinical cases, it enables students to develop practical skills which are vital for navigating the complexities of medical settings. This approach is imperative given the intricate and multifaceted nature of medical cases which are key elements in providing quality patient care. With the aim of revolutionizing the integration of case-based problem solving in our pre-clinical curriculum, we wanted to compare the performance of students on case-based scenarios when assessed individually versus in small groups. An USMLE board-style assessment was created for and taken by second-year medical students across two campuses. Clinical cases covered patient presentation, examination findings, pertinent laboratory findings, radiologic and histopathologic images. Students independently undertook a pre- workshop set of 10 questions focusing on most likely diagnoses of the presented clinical scenarios. A small group workshop followed the same 10 pre-workshop questions. Followed by a set of 30 additional questions which were centered around the same clinical cases. The assessment focused on student identification of diagnosis and knowledge regarding workup and management. McNamara tests assessed the difference in response rate between pre- and post-workshop matching questions while independent t-test assessed the responses between the two campuses. 354 students across two campuses completed the pre- and post-workshop cases. Overall, there was a statistically significant increase in the percentage of correct responses to the post-workshop cases than the pre-workshop questions, p-value less than 0.0001. Additionally, for the matching questions between pre- and post-workshop, there was also a statistically significant increase in the percentage of correct responses for the post-workshop assessments. For the matching questions between pre- and post-workshop, there was also a statistically significant increase in the percentage of correct responses for the post-workshop as compared to the pre-workshop. All p-values were less than 0.0001. 14 clinical cases had the highest correct responses between 80 to 100 percent, while the remaining six clinical cases related to rather complicated clinical scenarios, they failed less optimally, Conclusion is that a team-based approach to problem solving proved to be an effective strategy for enhanced performance in case scenario board-style questions. Our analysis helped identify questions which needed to be re-evaluated in future assessments, and a team-based approach should be emphasized early in medical school training and can lead to quality patient care. Thank you so much for your patience. If you have any questions, please reach out to me at cprasad.westernu.edu. Thank you so much.

team-based learning

medical education

knowledge retention

USMLE assessment

clinical cases