Health Sciences 1120 Orientation

Welcome to HthSci 1120, Case Studies in Health Science. This orientation is designed to help you become familiar with accessing and navigating the course.  Perhaps the first, and most important thing to understand, is this course has 2 "texts."  The first is the "Case Study Workbook" which should have been purchased with the course.  The second "text," is information that we'll used on the World Wide Web.  Many links are found within the course that link to sites out on the web.  So information found on the web and in the workbook, are used together.  More about the workbook coming up.  Let's start by exploring the syllabus and a case study.

1. Click on the syllabus button. This page is very important. Please take the time to read through it. It contains a course description, learning objectives, case content, testing and grading information, and information about the workbook.

2. The cheating policy tab explains the Weber State Health Science cheating policy.  You will be held to this policy so take a minute to review this.

4. The “Case Studies” link contains 10 case studies.. Go ahead and click on the first case. Each of the buttons on this page contains material you need to study and explore.

a. Click on the case objectives. This page summarizes everything you need to learn from the case study. The objectives are also found at the beginning of each chapter in the workbook.  The workbook provides room to take notes on each objective as you study the case.  All of the test questions will be based on the case objectives.

b. Now click on the health professional page. This page contains links to all of the health professionals introduced in the case. The health professional sites explore that profession and provide further links to sites that may be of interest on the web. Don’t become overwhelmed with the amount of material here. You will not be tested on the average salary of a clinical laboratory scientist! These sites are to help you explore your future. I assume you’re interested in a health profession if you are enrolled in this course. Take the time to really investigate health professions you may not have even heard of. As you explore the case studies, think about how the roles of the various health professionals as they diagnose and treat disease. How do they interact? How are they involved with the patient? Is this something you would be interested in as a profession? On the exams, you will be expected to understand what each health professional does, and how they are involved in the case.

c. Let’s click on the case study. Each case is formatted the same way. If you understand the way the first case is set up, you’ll understand them all. Each case study is a story about a person with some type of medical problem. Many of the cases are based on interviews with actual people.

The case studies contain links that explore the disease process, explain a diagnostic test, or define medical terminology. Scroll down the case and look at some of the links. See if you can find a link for each of the main areas discussed above.

Now scroll down the case until you see a box that contains a link. Boxes contain links to diagnostic testing results. You are not responsible for being able to understand and interpret all of these results! Note the green writing following the test results. This green text is labeled “instructor notes.” These notes are very important. They direct you to what your instructor expects you to understand from the results. These “instructor notes” will appear at other points throughout the case.

Have you noticed the purple italicized writing interspersed throughout the case. These are questions that you should answer as you progress through the case. These questions can also be found in the workbook.  Many of the links have a lot of information.  The questions should help you focus on what the instructor expects you to learn from these links.

***Many of the links in the case study are sites on the Web that contain additional links. Please feel free to explore these links. If you get lost in cyberspace, click the back button on your browser. If you keep clicking the back button, you will eventually return to the case study.

***If you find a link that is broken, please email the instructor immediately. Although we try and keep all of the links functioning, occasionally an outside website will change before we catch it. Broken links can be fixed by the following day.

d. Go back to the case study home page (you can hit the back button on your browser until you return). Let’s click on the case summary. This page contains a summary of the important points in the case. Make sure you understand the summary page before taking the exam.

e. The button titled “answers to case questions” is a link to an answer page for the interactive questions. You will learn the most if you answer the questions on your own or in a group as you explore the case study. When you complete the case, check your answers on this page.

f. The last button is “Additional Links of Interest.” This contains links to other sites on the Web that pertain to the case study. If you’re interested in the case, explore some of these other sites. There’s a lot of fascinating material!

Nice job! You’ve explored a case study and should now be familiar with the layout of the cases.

5.  Let's look at the workbook next.  It's important to understand that the workbook is not a text but does contain some of the information you'll need to complete the case.  Each chapter consists of"

    a. Case objectives.  These are listed with the case study online and also in the workbook.  The workbook provides an area to take notes about the objectives.  Each test question is tied to an objective so if you master these, you should be able to master the exam.

    b.  Supplementary information for the case study.  This information reviews key anatomy and/or physiology related to the body system in the case study.  Other background information that may be needed is given here.  For example, the sports injury case contains information on joints, movements at synovial joints, and the knee joint.  Diagrams can also be found here. 

    c.  Interactive questions.  These questions were described above and are found in the case study by a link to an outside web site.  These questions should guide you as to what you need to know from the website.

    d.  Discussion questions.  If you are a concurrent enrollment student, your teacher will ask you to answer at least one of these questions.  Each question is worth 10 points of your grade.  If you are a WSU student, you will be completing discussions with the class on the online course.

    e.  Review exercises.  These exercises will help you review some of the concepts for the exam. 

    f.  Challenge questions.  Your instructor may ask you to complete some of the challenge questions or discuss them in the class. 

6.  Let’s talk about the exams. Exams are online on Weber State’s testing site: http://chitester.weber.edu. Each exam requires a password that your teacher will provide as you test. There are 10 exams, one that follows each case. A midterm exam follows the first 5 cases; the final exam contains material from the last 5 cases. The test questions are multiple choice. Press the stop button when you complete the test. You will not be allowed to change any test answers after this point. After hitting the stop button, you will automatically receive your score. You will also be allowed to review any questions that you missed.

The lowest exam (from exams 1-10) will be dropped.  The midterm and final exam may not be dropped.

Congratulations! You have completed the course orientation. Have fun with the course. Good Luck!