Journal of Global Medical Education and Research

Idiopathic intracranial hypertension (IIH) or Benign intracranial hypertension (BIH) is an uncommon disorder  characterized by signs and symptoms of raised intracranial pressure of unknown cause and usually without any  evidence of intracranial pathology. This condition typically affects obese women. The incidence of IIH is increasing  with the rising prevalence of obesity. The most common symptoms are headache, nausea, vomiting, pulsatile  tinnitus, transient episodes of visual loss, diplopia and other visual symptoms. Papilledema is a major clinical sign.  Visual impairment is a serious complication that may not be recognized by the patients. As its presenting symptoms  mimic those of a brain tumour, it’s also called pseudotumor cerebri (PTC). This paper in brief reviews epidemiology,  clinical manifestations, etiopathogenetic hypothesis, diagnostic challenges, and current treatments of IIH including  medical, surgical, and interventional management of this condition. The efficacy and complications of surgical  interventions like cerebrospinal fluid diversion, optic nerve sheath fenestration, and endovascular venous stenting  reported in recent two to three decades have been summarized in brief.

One of the essential aspect in medical education is feedback, which helps in enhancing teaching and training  in the right direction by directly observing the trainee/student by the teacher. A good feedback is known to bring  about the desired change in the trainee; while at the same time a poorly given feedback may do the opposite.  Interactions with students calls for sensitivity, observations, calibrations, and choosing the appropriate words.  Medical teachers must know the basic principles of giving effective feedback. It requires preparation in terms  of timings and words and should be supportive and sequential process. Many methods have been described for  giving feedback, each having its own merits and de-merits. We describe here some principles of feedback, merits  and demerits. Any of these can be adopted depending on the needs of learner and teacher. A constructive and  effective feedback can help the learner in achieving the required skills and enhance learning and the learning  process.

Selecting the best assessment method for students in terms of validity and reliability is still a matter of debate  among instructors. The written assessments are crucial in modern academic curricula and include multiple-choice  questions and short answer questions that are currently important devices to measure students’ learning and  achievement. Notably, multiple-choice question-based testing has an association with the assessment of lower  order cognition in students, including the discrete facts’ recall and, therefore, many instructors are questioning  their use in the university education. Both multiple-choice questions and short answer questions’ testing formats  are widely used in the undergraduate education. However, the debate between researches continues as to which of  these two different assessments is more effective and reliable, and whether there is a correlation between them. In  this article, we will describe the features and limitations of multiple-choice questions and short answer questions’  testing formats and their positive and negative effects, and compare these two common assessment methods among  biomedical/medical students.