Medical teacher
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Physicians' empathy is generally regarded as important and attempts are made to foster empathy. However, research indicates that the medical students' empathy is often stunted during medical education, and our understanding of how empathy is modulated during medical education is limited. This critical review explores some relatively-neglected challenges in the literature on empathy development in medical education. ⋯ This may contribute to sustain a double-blinded, dichotomized clinical gaze--a clinical gaze that tends to separate biomedical aspects from human experience and understanding and to neglect existential aspects of both the physician and the patient. Empathy training and the humanities should not be situated outside the hard core of medicine, but rather foster critical discussions of the limits and strengths of biomedical paradigms throughout medicine. In this way, the gap between biomedicine and the humanities could be bridged, and empathy training could contribute both in developing physicians' general clinical perception and judgement and in preventing the widespread stunting of empathy.
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Many studies have recognized that the first postgraduate year (PGY-1) of residency training is the most stressful year. Failing to cope with the stress will have negative impact on their work performance and the quality of patient care. ⋯ Resident's personal characteristics were closely related to stress and burnout. Therefore, in addition to assessing their work-related stress, exploring their personal characteristics should be taken into account for early identification of residents at risk of burnout.
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Empathy is one of the fundamental factors in patient care that is beneficial to both patient and physician. ⋯ Results support the construct and criterion-related validities and reliability of the Persian version of the JSPE. Score difference between Iranian and American samples may not reflect a genuine difference in empathy trait and can be explained by cultural factors.
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Exit examinations in medicine are 'high stakes' examinations and as such must satisfy a number of criteria including psychometric robustness, fairness and reliability in the face of legal or other challenges. ⋯ The University of Adelaide's MBBS programme has since dropped the MEQ paper from its exit examination and is evaluating in its place the Script Concordance test.
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The UK General Medical Council (GMC) in its regulatory capacity conducts formal tests of competence (TOCs) on doctors whose performance is of concern. TOCs are individually tailored to each doctor's specialty and grade. ⋯ The blueprint described was easy to construct and is easy to use. It reflects the knowledge, skills and behaviours (learning outcomes) to be assessed. It guides commissioning of test material and enables the systematic and faithful sampling of common and important problems. The principles described have potential for wider application to blueprinting in undergraduate or clinical training programmes. Such a blueprint can provide the essential link between a curriculum and its assessment system and ensure that assessment content is stable over time.