Teaching and learning in medicine
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Feedback is an essential tool in medical education, and the process is often difficult for both faculty and learner. There are strong analogies between the provision of educational feedback and doctor-patient communication during the clinical encounter. ⋯ A model for provision of educational feedback based on communication skills used in the clinical encounter can be useful in the medical education setting. More robust evaluation of the construct validity is required in actual training program situations.
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The One Minute Preceptor (OMP) faculty development workshop is aimed at improving outpatient preceptors' abilities to teach in ambulatory settings. Practice applying the 5 microskills is central to learning the OMP, yet participants frequently avoid the role-playing portion of the standard workshop. Task complexity may result in significant cognitive burden while learning these new teaching skills. ⋯ The introduction of highly scripted cases and SLs appear to effectively help participants overcome dissatisfaction with role-playing and provide increasingly challenging yet authentic clinical teaching scenarios for skills practice. We recommend further research using objective measures.
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In July 2003, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) instituted new resident work hour mandates, which are being shown to improve resident well-being and patient safety. However, there are limited data on the impact these new mandates may have on educational activities. ⋯ The implementation of a novel day float system for the inpatient medicine ward service improved compliance with ACGME work duty requirements and did not adversely impact educational activities of the residency training program.
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Establishing credible, defensible, and acceptable passing scores for performance-type examinations in real-world settings is a challenge for health professions educators. Our purpose in this article is to provide step-by-step instructions with worked examples for 5 absolute standard-setting methods that can be used to establish acceptable passing scores for performance examinations such as Objective Structured Clinical Examinations or standardized patient encounters. ⋯ Different standard-setting methods produce different passing scores; there is no "gold standard." The key to defensible standards lies in the choice of credible judges and in the use of a systematic approach to collecting their judgments. Ultimately, all standards are policy decisions.