Improving lectures in medicine: Ten examples of mini-cases to be used in the teaching of pharmacology

Lectures are the preferred method of teaching in many schools of Medicine. However, this method has several limitations, such as the passive role assumed by students and the loss of their attention. In order to improve the use of lectures, some authors have suggested the use of minicases. These are short texts that include several questions, which are related with the contents of the lecture and students are asked to answer them at its end. The present paper describes an experience of using minicases in the teaching of pharmacology. It offers ten examples to illustrate how they are built. Most of them are related with the real world, they permit to put knowledge of basic sciences in context of clinical problems and stimulate the understanding of key concepts of the discipline. © 2011 Educación Médica.