Academic medicine : journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges
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Physicians' professionalism and humanism have become central foci of the efforts of medical educators as the public, various accrediting and licensing agencies, and the profession itself have expressed concerns about the apparent erosion of physicians' competency in these aspects of the art, rather than the science, of medicine. Of the many obstacles to enhancing trainees' skills in these domains, one of the most significant is the difficulty in assessing competency in physicians' professionalism and humanism. The author suggests that the assessment of these aspects of the art of medicine has more in common with the approaches used in criticism of the arts than with the quantitative assessment tools appropriate to the scientific method and the medical model. ⋯ Such connoisseurs would possess expert knowledge, training, and experience in the interpersonal aspects of the art of medicine, allowing them to deconstruct concepts such as empathy, compassion, integrity, and respect into their respective key elements while evaluating physicians' behaviors as an integrated, cohesive whole. Through the use of a rich descriptive vocabulary, humanism connoisseurs would provide valid formative and summative feedback regarding competency in medical professionalism and humanism. In the process, they would serve to counteract the relative marginalization of professionalism and humanism in the informal and lived curricula of medical trainees.
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The challenge of how best to evaluate educational scholars (and specifically, clinician-educators) and teachers for promotion continues to confront academia. While the work of educational scholars and teachers often overlaps, the terms for justifying their promotion differ substantially. In each case, the author maintains that evaluation should be oriented to evidence of the impact of their work. ⋯ The author states his case for these principles, and also presents an innovative tool, the "impact map," as a way of graphically portraying the track record of an individual clinician-educator. Such maps are more vivid than narrative testimonials in organizing and displaying evidence of impact over time. This tool, combined with the author's other suggestions to assist the promotion process for educators and teachers, is aimed at fostering a greater emphasis on outcomes in assessing both clinician-educators and teachers to achieve greater rigor and fairness.
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To collect baseline data and describe how medical schools handle faculty affairs and faculty development responsibilities. ⋯ While a consensus is emerging about the functions of a faculty affairs office, no school has a comprehensive faculty development system, in contrast to most industries, which must be more forward-looking to compete for talent.
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The American Academy of Pediatrics' statement on palliative care for children emphasizes the need to identify and address barriers to effective palliative care. The authors describe a seminar for pediatrics residents on death and bereavement that addresses these issues. The day-long seminar for second-year residents has been offered annually since 1996. ⋯ The seminar uses an intense and comprehensive multidisciplinary approach to accomplish seven goals: (1) to have residents gain expertise in talking with parents about the death of their child; (2) to have residents practice and experience how it feels to be in emotionally charged situations; (3) to train residents to become more knowledgeable concerning autopsy and organ donation, and to learn strategies to approach these topics with a child's parents; (4) to have residents gain an understanding of the role of the ministry for families who are grieving; (5) to provide residents with multidisciplinary strategies to support a family after a child has died; (6) to help residents gain insight into the impact of death on their own emotions and the importance of addressing their own emotions to cope with stress and potential burnout; (7) and to help residents better understand the parents' perceptions of the medical care providers and their dying child. In their evaluation comments, the residents report value from a seminar designed to help them address issues of patient death and bereavement. This type of educational intervention should be considered for the curriculum by other residency programs.