Academic medicine : journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges
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The teaching OSCE (objective structured clinical examination) was developed from existing OSCE materials to provide direct observation and feedback to students on their doctor-patient relationship skills, students' abilities to do a focused history and physical examination, and to familiarize students with this type of examination. ⋯ Our department has used OSCEs for six years to evaluate students at the end of the third-year family medicine clerkship. Even after continuous improvement, our OSCE did not meet higher standards of reliability and would need at least three hours of testing per student to meet those standards. The low number of students in the rotation and limited resources to increase the duration of the OSCE made it very difficult to construct a more reliable examination. At the same time, both faculty and students wanted more direct observation and feedback on performance with clinical scenarios. Using existing OSCE resources to change the OSCE to a teaching tool proved to be an efficient use of teaching resources while increasing our educational impact. Students report that they appreciate the opportunity to have constructive discussions of their strengths and weaknesses in clinical encounters, observe a variety of doctor-patient interaction styles, and practice for future OSCE-type examinations. Faculty members enjoy this active teaching format and find the process of students giving feedback to their peers educationally useful. The teaching OSCE has been extremely well rated in the end-of-rotation evaluations and will be continued in future clerkships.
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Administration of graduate medical education programs has become more difficult as compliance with ACGME work guidelines has assumed increased importance. These guidelines have caused many changes in the resident work environment, including the emergence of complicated cross-cover arrangements. Many participating residents (each with his or her own individual scheduling requirements) usually generate these schedules. Accordingly, schedules are often not submitted in a timely fashion and they may not be in compliance with the ACGME guidelines for maximum on-call assignments and mandatory days off. Our objective was the establishment of a Web-based system that guides residents in creating on-call schedules that follow ACGME guidelines while still allowing maximum flexibility -- thus allowing each resident to maintain an internal locus of control. ⋯ Implementation of this program has been met with great enthusiasm from the institutional stakeholders. Specifically, residents have embraced the ability to directly control their schedules and have gained appreciation for the regulatory matrix in which they function. Institutional administrators have praised the improvement in compliance and the ease of documentation. We anticipate that the system will also meet with approval from reviewing regulatory bodies, as it generates and stores accurate information about the resident work environment. This program is robust and versatile enough to be modified for any GME training program in the country.
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Computer-based testing (CBT) for the purpose of the national licensure examination has increased interest among medical students in this modality of testing. The advent of Web-based question-delivery systems for self-assessment and learning has made it possible for students to practice this technology and participate in self-directed learning. Test Pilot(TM) is a Web-based program that provides a fast and easy tool for the development and deployment of online testing. Our objectives for introducing the program were to (1) develop a large database of questions for students' practice and self-assessment; (2) include multimedia tools such as illustrations and short videos to enhance learning; (3) provide a feedback tool for clerkship and site directors regarding student performance; and (4) evaluate this tool in terms of students' frequency of use, students' satisfaction, and its potential effectiveness in enhancing learning. ⋯ Test Pilot has many benefits, including access control, immediate feedback, automated scoring, interactive learning, and data analysis. The enhancement of material permitted by a Web-based system increases the depth and variety of the learning experience by adding perceptual dimensions. Test Pilot also provides the clerkship director with the capability to obtain improved measurements of student performance and captures the student's self-learning and testing process. It can potentially identify weaknesses or inconsistencies across the different sites and recognize students who may need additional help early in the rotation. Over a one-year period, most students have switched from the quiz disks to Test Pilot. The students reported satisfaction with the Web-based format and found it user friendly. They especially liked the immediate feedback. The students have requested more questions and multimedia options be added. We plan to continue the development and assessment of this learning tool.
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The mini-clinical evaluation exercise, or mini-CEX, assesses residents' history and physical examination skills. To date, no study has assessed the validity of the mini-CEX (mCEX) evaluation format. The authors' objective was to determine the reliability and validity of the mCEX evaluation format. ⋯ This study suggests that the mCEX is a feasible and reliable evaluation tool. The validity of the mCEX is supported by the strong correlations between mCEX scores and corresponding ABIM MEF scores as well as the ITE.
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With increased budget constraints, academic health centers (AHCs) have turned their focus on physician compensation. While many AHCs are concerned that compensation programs driven primarily by revenue generation will have a negative impact on their academic mission, little information is available to support this. The authors examined the effects on teaching and clinical productivity of an innovative compensation program for pediatrics primary care faculty at an AHC and related those effects to national standards for productivity. ⋯ Successful productivity-based physician compensation programs can be developed for AHCs.