Medical education
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Techniques for teaching electrocardiogram interpretation: self-directed learning is less effective than a workshop or lecture.
Teaching 12-lead electrocardiogram (ECG) interpretation to students and residents is a challenge for medical educators. To date, few studies have compared the effectiveness of different techniques used for ECG teaching. ⋯ Compared with those taught using workshop- and lecture-based formats, medical students learning ECG interpretation by SDL had lower test scores.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Role of clinical context in residents' physical examination diagnostic accuracy.
Clinical context may act as both an aid to decision making and a source of bias contributing to medical error. The effect of clinical history, a form of clinical context, on the diagnostic accuracy of the physical examination is unknown. ⋯ Clinical context is associated with enhanced diagnostic accuracy of common valvular lesions. However, this effect seems linked to heuristic hypothesis generation and may predispose to premature diagnostic closure, anchoring and confirmation bias.
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The disclosure of harmful errors to patients is recommended, but appears to be uncommon. Understanding how trainees disclose errors and how their practices evolve during training could help educators design programmes to address this gap. This study was conducted to determine how trainees would disclose medical errors. ⋯ Trainees may not be prepared to disclose medical errors to patients and worrisome trends in trainee apology practices were observed across levels of training. Medical educators should intensify efforts to enhance trainees' skills in meeting patients' expectations for the open disclosure of harmful medical errors.