Academic medicine : journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges
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Guidelines for reporting several types of medical studies have been described in the literature. However, there are no current guidelines to report studies on mastery learning curriculum development and trainee evaluation in medical education. Such guidelines will be important because medical education is moving toward a competency-based model. ⋯ The ReMERM guidelines highlight the importance of developing rigorous curricula that embody reliable measures which yield valid decisions about achievement among medical learners. These guidelines should improve the quality of reporting and help educators, authors, peer reviewers, journal editors, and readers to better understand and evaluate mastery learning research. With this shift to competency-based medical education, the ReMERM guidelines should help meet medical educators' needs to achieve these new goals.
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An emerging priority in medical education is the need to facilitate learners' acquisition of quality improvement (QI) competencies. Accreditation bodies in both Canada and the United States have included QI and patient safety in their core competencies. ⋯ The curriculum will be evaluated using a knowledge assessment and satisfaction tool and postproject resident interviews. Facilitators will focus more on improving faculty develop ment in QI.
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The problem of poor mental health in residency is well established. Burnout, depression, and suicidal ideation are prevalent among resident physicians, and these problems appear to persist into practice. Leaders in graduate medical education such as policy makers at the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) and directors of individual programs and institutions should acknowledge these important issues and take steps to address them. ⋯ The ACGME should also call for and support research in this area. Leaders or directors of individual programs and institutions should consider wellness initiatives that both (1) identify and address suboptimal aspects of the learning environment and (2) train residents in resilience skills. Efforts to improve the residency learning environment could be guided by the work of Maslach and Leiter, who describe six categories of work stress that can contribute to burnout: (1) workload, (2) control, (3) balance between effort and reward, (4) community, (5) fairness, and (6) values.