Medical education
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Historical Article
Flexner's ethical oversight reprised? Contemporary medical education and the health impacts of corporate globalisation.
Abraham Flexner's famous reports of 1910 and 1912, Medical Education in the United States and Canada and Medical Education in Europe, were written to assist the development of a positive response in university curricula to a revolution in understanding about the scientific foundations of clinical medicine. Flexner pointed out many deficiencies in medical education that retain contemporary resonance. Generally underemphasised in Flexner's reports, however, were recommendations promoting a firm understanding of and commitment to medical ethics as a basis of medical professionalism. Indeed, Flexner's praise for the scholastic basic of German medical education appeared somewhat ironic when the ethical inadequacies of prominent Nazi doctors were revealed at the Nuremberg Trials. ⋯ This article suggests that contemporary medical educators, like Flexner, may be at risk of inadequately addressing a major challenge to evolving medical professionalism. Medical ethics, health law and even the international right to health are now increasingly emphasised in medical curricula. The same cannot be said, however, of lobbying principles arising from the structures of corporate globalisation, although these are rapidly becoming an even more dominant force in shaping medical practice around the globe. Conclusion Today it is the normative tension between medical ethics, health law and international human rights on the one hand and the lobbying principles and strategies of corporate globalisation that must urgently become the focus of major recommendations for reshaping the teaching of medical professionalism. Suggestions are made as to how this might practically be achieved.
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Assessment of medical student clinical skills is best carried out using multiple assessment methods. A programme was developed to obtain parent evaluations of medical student paediatric interview skills for feedback and to identify students at risk of poor performance in summative assessments. ⋯ Parent evaluations provided useful feedback to students and identified 1 group of students at increased risk of weaker performance in summative assessments. They could be combined with other methods of formative assessment to enhance screening procedures for clinically weak students.
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Medical student numbers in Britain are increasing rapidly, beyond the capacity of most teaching hospitals, with more clinical teaching taking place in district general hospitals (DGHs). Surveys show that students value the intensive clinical teaching, smaller student numbers and perceived greater friendliness in DGHs. This paper explores DGH staff attitudes to teaching--their level of initial enthusiasm, their attitudes to current teaching, its effect on the hospital and to the sustainability of DGH undergraduate teaching--as both student numbers and service workloads continue to rise. ⋯ This study shows a considerable initial enthusiasm for teaching in DGH staff, which is persisting despite increasing student numbers. However, the current teaching load is seen to be substantial. Teaching more students is likely to produce major problems, based on lack of teaching time and increasingly heavy service commitments rather than lack of patients. This is likely to be a widespread problem for DGHs. Failure to ensure adequate teaching staff and facilities as well as co-ordination could threaten the sustainability of this potentially valuable teaching initiative.
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The Internet and worldwide web have expanded opportunities for the provision of a flexible, convenient and interactive form of continuing medical education (CME). Larger numbers of doctors are accessing and using the Internet to locate and seek medical information. It has been suggested that a significant proportion of this usage is directly related to questions that arise from patient care. A variety of Internet technologies are being used to provide both asynchronous and synchronous forms of web-based CME. Various models for designing and facilitating web-based CME learning have also been reported. The purpose of this study was to examine the nature and characteristics of the web-based CME evaluative outcomes reported in the peer-reviewed literature. ⋯ The findings suggest an important need to examine in greater detail the nature and characteristics of those web-based learning technologies, environments and systems which are most effective in enhancing practice change and ultimately impacting patient and health outcomes. This is particularly important as the Internet grows in popularity as a medium for knowledge transfer.