Family medicine
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Medical schools are improving end-of-life (EOL) care curricula; however, students rarely practice EOL communication skills in a safe learning environment. ⋯ A variety of curricular methods helped students' confidence and self-reflection around hospice discussions in a comfortable environment.
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This study's purpose was to simultaneously investigate demographic, socioeconomic status, health status, and access-to-care factors to see if they could explain racial/ethnic differences in the odds of reproductive-aged women having a regular physician and perceptions of those women about their care. ⋯ The odds that women of reproductive age will have a regular doctor and report feeling cared for by that doctor differ by race/ethnicity and socioeconomic characteristics. Black women have higher odds, and Spanish-speaking women have lower odds of having a regular doctor than white women, and Hispanic and Asian women have lower odds of feeling cared for.
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The six competencies of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education include the lifelong learning skills of evidence-based medicine (EBM)/information mastery. We developed and tested an Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) station that would measure these skills in family medicine residents. ⋯ It uses an 8-point checklist and global measure and has good psychometric properties, including construct validity, interrater reliability (correlation=.96), and internal reliability (Cronbach's=.58). This tool is useful for training programs, since assessing EBM/information mastery is an important part of the evaluation of physician skills.
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Medical students have had a declining interest in family medicine as a career. Some studies have shown a small inverse relationship between debt levels and primary care, but it is unclear how students perceive remuneration in different specialties and how these perceptions might influence career choice. ⋯ Students are able to accurately predict income by specialty from an early stage of training and have a negative perception of income in family medicine. The perception that family physicians make too little money could be an important driver--or at least a modifier--in the lack of interest in family medicine.
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Assessing the baseline competency of incoming interns is a challenge to faculty of all residency programs. This article describes and evaluates the Intern Clinical Judgment Evaluation, a tool developed to test the clinical judgment and communication skills of incoming interns. ⋯ The Intern Clinical Judgment Evaluation was a valid tool to predict which interns would require more faculty supervision during intern year. Based on solicited feedback from tested interns, it also was a positive testing experience.