Medical teacher
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Comparative Study
Attitudes among students and teachers on vertical integration between clinical medicine and basic science within a problem-based undergraduate medical curriculum.
Important elements in the curriculum at the Faculty of Health Sciences in Linköping are vertical integration, i.e. integration between the clinical and basic science sections of the curriculum, and horizontal integration between different subject areas. Integration throughout the whole curriculum is time-consuming for both teachers and students and hard work is required for planning, organization and execution. The aim was to assess the importance of vertical and horizontal integration in an undergraduate medical curriculum, according to opinions among students and teachers. ⋯ Students scored horizontal integration slightly but significantly higher than the teachers (median 6 vs 5 points; p=0.009, Mann-Whitney U-test), whereas teachers scored vertical integration higher than students (6 vs 5; p=0.019, Mann-Whitney U-test). Both students and teachers considered horizontal and vertical integration to be highly important components of the undergraduate medical programme. We believe both kinds of integration support problem-based learning and stimulate deep and lifelong learning and suggest that integration should always be considered deeply when a new curriculum is planned for undergraduate medical education.
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This paper describes the Cascade Communication Skills Teaching Project, which is a programme of facilitator training enabling communication skills teaching in the consultation to general practitioners to be cascaded throughout the former East Anglia Deanery. The paper also explores the project's educational and organizational effectiveness. ⋯ These facilitators are now able to act as a resource to cascade high-quality communication skills teaching into vocational training schemes, trainer education and the continuing professional development of established general practitioners throughout each district in the region. The project has now been extended into medical student teaching, specialist teaching at junior and senior level, and multi-disciplinary teaching.
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This qualitative study explores medical students' attitudes towards communication skills learning. Thirty-two medical students, including representatives from each year of the medical degree, participated in five focus-group discussions. Theme analysis of each transcript by two independent analysts produced two attitude-related themes: positive attitudes towards communication skills and negative attitudes towards learning communication skills. ⋯ Some reported being socialized into developing the negative attitudes held by older students and qualified doctors. The timing of communication skills learning was also thought to be important in determining attitudes. The findings within each of these themes and their educational implications are discussed in this paper.
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The introduction of new learning technologies, the exponential growth of Internet usage and the advent of the World Wide Web have the potential of changing the face of higher education. There are also demands in medical education for greater globalization, for the development of a common core curriculum, for improving access to training, for more flexible and student-centred training programmes including programmes with multi-professional elements and for maintaining quality while increasing student numbers and working within financial constraints. ⋯ Fifty leading international medical schools and institutions are participating in a feasibility study. This is exploring: innovative thinking and approaches to the new learning technologies including e-learning and virtual reality; new approaches to curriculum planning and mapping and advanced instructional design based on the use of 'reusable learning objects'; an international perspective on medical education which takes into account the trend to globalization; a flexible curriculum which meets the needs of different students and has the potential of increasing access to medicine.
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In response to the competitive examination culture that pervaded medical education in the 1940s and 1950s the founders of McMaster University's new MD Programme created an assessment system based on group functioning within the tutorial. While the tutorial has served the educational process well, 30 years of experience has highlighted its deficiencies as an assessment tool. This paper describes the accumulation of evidence that led to the awareness of the weakness of tutorial assessment and the attempts to provide reliable assessment by the reintroduction of examinations, but in novel formats which would not alter the goals of the curriculum.