21-6
BASING TEACHING MATERIALS ON CHARTS OR GUIDES
Many of the charts and guides in Where There Is No Doctor can provide ideas
for teaching aids that help health workers to practice comparative diagnosis. Here
are two examples from Project Piaxtla in Mexico.
Example 1: Swollen lymph nodes
During one training course, health workers made a flannel-board puzzle to help
themselves review the different kinds of swollen lymph nodes. The puzzle is based
on information from pages 88, 196, and 197 of Where There Is No Doctor.
First they made puzzle cards showing on one half the signs of a problem causing
swollen lymph nodes, and on the other half the name of the problem that most
often causes those signs.
They chose 3 colors to represent signs of different kinds of swollen lymph nodes:
RED = PAINFUL
BLUE = PAINLESS
Then the students made a figure of a
man, with slits cut in the neck and other
places where
swollen lymph
nodes occur.
infected
wound
YELLOW = WITH PUS
inflamed
lymph
canal
slits nodes
Next they cut out and colored 4 kinds of
cardboard lymph nodes:
PAINFUL
PAINFUL PAINLESS PAINLESS
WITH PUS
WITH PUS
The ‘nodes’ have tabs that fit into
the slits in the cardboard man.