Personal Improvement

The PDCA cycle is a valuable process that can be applied to practically anything. In this session, we discuss case related medical student performance, but the PDCA cycle can be used in everything from making a meal to walking your dog. An immediate concern of yours may be improving your study skills.

Example 1:  The Student with Poor Grades

Lakshmi is a first-year medical student who has just taken her first set of examinations and is very unhappy with the results.

• What is she trying to accomplish?Lakshmi knows that she needs to improve her studying skills in order to gain a better understanding of the material.

• How will she know that a change is an improvement?Lakshmi considers the most important measure of her study skills to be her exam grades. However, she does not want to risk another exam period just to find out that her skills are still not good. She decides that a better way to measure improvement is by taking old exams.

• What changes can she make that will result in improvement?Lakshmi thinks that she has spent too little time studying. She feels that the best way to improve her study skills is by putting in more hours.

Cycle 1

Plan:Lakshmi decides to add an additional thirty hours per week to her already busy schedule. She resolves that she must socialize less, get up earlier, and stay up later. At the end of the week she will take an old exam to see how she is progressing.

Do:By the end of the week, Lakshmi finds that she was able to add only fifteen hours of studying. When she takes the exam she is dismayed to find that she does no better.

Check:The fifteen extra hours of studying has made Lakshmi feel fatigued. In addition, she finds that her ability to concentrate during those hours is rather limited. She has not exercised all week and has not seen any of her friends. This forced isolation is discouraging her.

Act:Lakshmi knows that there must be another way. She needs to design a better, more efficient way to study that will allow her time to exercise and socialize.

Cycle 2

Plan:Lakshmi contacts all her medical school friends who she knows are doing well yet still have time for outside lives. Many of these friends have similar advice that Lakshmi thinks she can use. Based on her findings, she decides to always attend lectures, to rewrite her class notes in a format she can understand and based on what the professor has emphasized, and to use the assigned text only as a reference.

Do:Lakshmi returns to her original schedule of studying. However, instead of spending a majority of her time poring over the text, she rewrites and studies her notes. She goes to the text only when she does not understand her notes. When Lakshmi takes one of the old exams, she finds that she has done better, but she still sees room for improvement.

Check:Lakshmi now realizes that she had been spending too much time reading unimportant information in the required text. She knows that her new approach works much better, yet she still feels that she needs more studying time. She is unsure what to do, because she doesn't want to take away from her social and physically active life.

Act:Lakshmi decides to continue with her new studying approach while attempting to find time in her busy day to study more.

Cycle 3

Plan:In her search for more time to study, Lakshmi realizes that there are many places that she can combine exercising and socializing with studying. First, she decides to study her rewritten notes while she is exercising on the Stairmaster. Next, she intends to spend part of her socializing time studying with her friends.

Do:Lakshmi's friends are excited about studying together, and their sessions turn into a fun and helpful use of everyone's time. Lakshmi has found that she enjoys studying while she exercises. In fact, she discovers that she remains on the Stairmaster longer when she's reading over her notes. When Lakshmi takes her exams this week, she is happy to find that her grades are significantly higher.

Check:Lakshmi now knows that studying does not mean being locked up in her room reading hundreds of pages of text. She realizes that she can gain a lot by studying in different environments while focusing on the most important points.

Act:Lakshmi chooses to continue with the changes she has made in her studying habits. What Lakshmi initially thought would be an improvement turned out to only discourage her further. Many people who are in Lakshmi's place do not take the time to study their changes and continue them even though they lead down a disheartening path. By using the PDCA cycle, Lakshmi was able to see that her initial change did not work and that she had to find one that would better suit her. With perseverance and the willingness to learn, Lakshmi was able to turn a negative outcome into a positive improvement experience.