Simulating Outbreaks in a Lab

Education is the lifeblood of the medical and health industries. But where do you turn when traditional teaching methods and resources are not preparing your students for the real world? Senior lecturer Dr. Monika Oli found GIDEON.

“Although most people teach Microbiology using dichotomy trees, this method is so artificial and doesn’t have any real-world applications. I try and integrate what’s in the real world into what I teach, and GIDEON’s platform helps me do that beautifully. Students do so much better this way.”

Dr. Oli teaches over 1,000 students each semester at the University of Florida’s Microbiology labs and finds GIDEON data and functionality critical to exposing pre-med and pre-nursing students to real information and results, giving meaningful context to their studies.

“I was able to completely rework the curriculum to align with GIDEON capability, running projects on diagnostic testing, organism identification, and outbreak scenarios. It puts students in situations common out in the industry and they get to role play patients, doctors, CDC, and government officials to deepen their familiarity with the skills they’ll need once they graduate.”

Dr. Oli has been using GIDEON for eight years as an academic, and it has enabled the development of online-based learning and projects, which have proven invaluable during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I’ve loved GIDEON from the beginning. I think it’s an amazing tool and I love interacting with it, and with all our classes moving online it has meant that we can continue to use the same approach without limitation because of the way we have integrated GIDEON with our teaching and support systems. It’s even available through our library! Everyone should know about it if you ask me!”