Teaching and learning in medicine
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Comparative Study
African American and white physicians: a comparison of satisfaction with medical education, professional careers, and research activities.
Given the disparity between proportions of minority in the general population and in the physician workforce and the projected increase in the minority population, it is important and timely to examine factors that contribute to satisfaction of minority physicians. ⋯ African American respondents were comparable with White respondents as to their medical careers, professional activities, and achievements as physicians. Their practice patterns reflected a greater sense of community need and involvement than their White counterparts. The sense of dissatisfaction with the social environment of medical school noted by African American respondents seems to persist during their professional careers.
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Procedure skill training and competency certification are an important part of internal medicine residency training. Expert guidelines exist on the minimum number of procedures recommended to attain competence, but these have not been validated. ⋯ Our study suggests that the ABIM recommended guidelines on procedure skill competence may be valid on the program level
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Editorial Comparative Study
Small group learning in medical education: a second look at the Springer, Stanne, and Donovan meta-analysis.
All in all, the evidence is not convincing. Only four of the nine randomized studies used the conventional small-group learning paradigm and qualify as studies of small-group learning, which are relevant to medical education. The results of one of the four are impossible to interpret because of the involvement of the investigator in teaching and test construction. ⋯ However, these narrative qualifications do nothing to adjust the effect-size measures, which are typically pooled or synthesized across studies--confounds and all. The idiosyncrasies of the studies seem to preclude a blanket qualification that can be applied conceptually across the collection of studies to arrive at a sound conclusion from the synthesis. In brief, the meta-analysis considered here does not support the application of small-group learning in medical education and it raises questions about meta-analysis in education with implications for evidence-based education.
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Failing candidates often make multiple attempts on licensure and certification examinations. For performance-based assessments, where available test material is often limited, overlap in examination content is frequently inevitable. ⋯ The exposure of case content on clinical skills examinations does not appear to provide any advantage, or disadvantage, to repeat test takers. This finding, although based on average scores for repeat examinees, suggests that valid assessment scores can be obtained even if there is some overlap in assessment content.
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Commercial support for continuing medical education (CME) raises questions about potential conflict of interest. Current disclosure methods provide limited, general information about the nature and degree of support, such that potential conflict of interest cannot be studied by researchers or understood by physicians. ⋯ The proposed method for disclosing conflict of interest for CME events should facilitate the study and understanding of how commercial support affects these programs.