Postgraduate medical journal
-
This study sought to compare clinical outcomes between three categories of patients: non-chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), diagnosed COPD and undiagnosed COPD in coronary artery bypass grafting surgery. ⋯ In CABG surgery, COPD is a well-known independent risk factor for morbidity. Patients with preoperative spirometry results indicative of COPD result in the same outcomes of known patients with COPD. As a result of that, greater value should be given to the preoperative spirometry in the EuroSCORE. Finally, the expected FEV1% appears not be a predictor for long-term survival.
-
We aim to identify patterns of disease clusters among inpatients of a general hospital and to describe the characteristics and evolution of each group. ⋯ We identify for the first time in a hospital environment five clusters of disease combinations among the inpatients. These clusters contain several high-incidence diseases related to both age and gender that express their own evolution and clinical characteristics over time.
-
Observational Study
Low performance of internal medicine senior residents in in-service examinations.
We observed an unprecedented and consistent low performance of senior residents as compared with juniors in monthly examinations. This compelled us to evaluate systematically and compare the scores of senior residents with their junior colleagues. This retrospective observational study was conducted in April 2020 among internal medicine residents. ⋯ Similarly, there is no significant difference in scores of residents of each level in end-of-term examinations of years 2018 and 2019 with p values 0.18 and 0.25, respectively. Performance of senior residents in our residency programme in in-service examinations is relatively low as compared with their junior colleagues. There is a need to evaluate reasons for this relatively low performance of senior residents.
-
Workplace-based assessments (WPBAs) have become embedded in the training and assessment of UK medical trainees since the onset of the 21st century. When first introduced WPBA required a significant adjustment in both trainees' and educators' training behaviour, and was met with scepticism in some quarters. In this study, we aimed to evaluate how trainees' perceptions of WPBAs have evolved over a 10-year period, as experience with them has increased. ⋯ Our study suggests trainees' perspectives of WPBAs have not changed in the 10 years since implementation. Trainees do not perceive WPBA as an accurate reflection of their competency but instead as a 'tick-box' bureaucratic exercise to enable career progression. Development of educator training and trainer and trainee job-planning is required to ensure that WPBAs are genuinely educational activities that offer an accurate reflection of trainees' medical competence.
-
There has been extensive research into methods of increasing academic departmental scholarly activity (DSA) through targeted interventions. Residency programmes are responsible for ensuring sufficient scholarly opportunities for residents. We sought to discover the outcomes of an intensive research initiative (IRI) on DSA in our department in a short-time interval. ⋯ We share our department's increase in DSA over a short 2-year period after implementing our IRI. Our goal in reporting our experience is to provide an example for departments that need to rapidly increase their DSA. By reporting the shortest time interval to achieve exponential DSA growth, we hope this example can support programmes in petitioning hospitals and medical colleges for academic support resources.