Medical education
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Ward rounds are an essential responsibility for doctors in hospital settings. Tools for guiding and assessing trainees' performance of ward rounds are needed. A checklist was developed for that purpose for use with trainees in internal medicine. ⋯ The checklist, developed for assessing trainees' performance of ward rounds in internal medicine, showed high content validity. Construct validity was supported by the higher scores of experienced doctors compared to those with less experience and the significant correlation between the observer's and nurses' global scores. The developed checklist should be valuable in guiding and assessing trainees on ward round performance.
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Inter-rater agreement is essential in rating clinical performance of doctors and other health professionals. The purpose of this study was to establish inter-rater agreement in categorising errors in the diagnostic process made by clinicians using computerised decision support systems. ⋯ Raters can achieve good agreement in categorising errors provided they are given explicit scoring rules and do not rely solely upon clinical judgement. The kappa coefficient has limitations in cases where the expected agreement between judges is high and variability is low. The use of 2 indices to assess agreement, analogous to test sensitivity and specificity, is recommended.
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To examine the prevalence of psychological morbidity, sources of stress and coping mechanisms in first year students in a problem-based learning undergraduate medical curriculum. ⋯ Increased student feedback and guidance about progress throughout the year and the provision of adequate learning resources may reduce student stress. Educational or pastoral intervention regarding effective coping strategies may also be beneficial. Continued follow-up of this cohort could provide information to inform further curriculum development and, if appropriate, aid the design of programmes for the prevention of stress-related problems.