Medical education
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The perception of whether a given behaviour is abusive differs between students and teachers. We speculated that attitudes towards reporting abusive and discriminatory behaviour may vary by specialty as well as by gender. ⋯ We conclude that female surgical residents and medical students undergo a process of acclimatization to the patriarchal surgical culture. As female surgeons become physician teachers they revert to a culture more similar to that of their female non-surgical colleagues. Although a process of deidealization occurs in medical training, these attitudes are not necessarily retained throughout the practising lifetime of physicians as they regain autonomy and more personal control.
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While the literature shows the clinical value for medical practitioners of skill in communicating with patients in an empathetic manner, objective evaluations of methods to teach empathy are few. ⋯ Further research is required to identify students who fail to acquire skill in expressing empathy after undergoing training, and to validate the pencil-and- paper measure of empathy against real-life performance.
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A pilot project assessing clinical performance was undertaken using the Anaesthesia Simulation Centre at the University of Toronto. The purpose of this study was to determine the reliability of assessments of medical students' performance using the simulator as an evaluation tool, to compare these assessments to written and clinical evaluations and to elicit student opinion. Simulator assessments were performed at the completion of the anaesthesia rotation. ⋯ Our pilot data suggest that the simulator is a reliable assessment method for medical students' performance. Further work may justify the inclusion of the simulator as an evaluation and education tool and expanded to incorporate learning objectives of other medical disciplines.