Family medicine
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As clinicians increasingly rely on telemedicine, medical students will need to learn how to appropriately use telemedicine in patient care. A formal approach to curriculum development is needed to identify gaps and needs in early medical student performance. ⋯ Findings suggest that early medical students are able to gather history and communicate over telemedicine, but perform poorly on telemedicine physical examination skills. More robust curriculum development addressing telemedicine physical examinations skills is needed early in medical training.
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Family physicians routinely manage uncertainty in their clinical practice. During their first year of clinical rotations, medical students learn communication and patient care skills that will influence the care they provide as future physicians. However, little is known about how their reactions to uncertainty change during this formative year, and medical education often fails to teach students how to manage uncertainty effectively. This study employs a repeated measures analysis of students' reactions to uncertainty over the course of their third year. ⋯ These findings confirm that students experience negative reactions to uncertainty during clinical rotations. Students would benefit from curriculum designed to mitigate consequences of negative affective reactions to uncertainty, particularly those students characteristically higher in intolerance of uncertainty. Given that students demonstrated more willingness to communicate about their uncertainty over time, medical school should equip students with the communication skills needed to discuss their uncertainty effectively with patients and preceptors.
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Burnout impacts medical students, residents, and practicing physicians. Existing research oversimplifies characteristics associated with burnout. Our study examined relationships between burnout, depressive symptoms, and evidence-based risk factors. ⋯ Current findings document substantial social disconnection, substandard residency wellness programs, inadequate time for exercise, sleep, and other forms of self-care in addition to substantial levels of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and depressive symptoms. We explore implications for the design of future burnout prevention efforts and research.
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Comment Letter
In Response to "Women Deserve Comprehensive Primary Care".
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Physician burnout is well described in the literature. In response, experts are now shifting to try to understand physician resiliency. We sought to better understand burnout and resiliency from the perspective of family medicine residents through the qualitative analysis of photographs and discussion. ⋯ Family medicine residents experience burnout in specific, unique ways, and are able to identify common sources of resilience. Family medicine educators can use the Photovoice methodology to help residents capture their personal experiences of burnout, share their experiences with peers, and discover sources of resilience.