Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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There is an established expectation that physicians in training demonstrate competence in all aspects of clinical care prior to entering professional practice. Multiple methods have been used to assess competence in patient care, including direct observation, simulation-based assessments, objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs), global faculty evaluations, 360-degree evaluations, portfolios, self-reflection, clinical performance metrics, and procedure logs. ⋯ At the 2012 Academic Emergency Medicine (AEM) consensus conference on educational research, one breakout group reviewed and discussed the evidence supporting various methods of assessing patient care and defined a research agenda for the continued development of specific assessment methods based on current best practices. In this article, the authors review each method's supporting reliability and validity evidence and make specific recommendations for future educational research.
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Professionalism is one of the six Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) core competencies on which emergency medicine (EM) residents are assessed. However, very few assessment tools exist that have been rigorously evaluated in this population. ⋯ A literature review was performed to identify existing assessment tools. Recommendations on future research directions were presented at the consensus conference, and an agenda was developed.
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To improve the teaching performance of emergency physicians, it is necessary to understand the attributes of expert teachers and the optimal methods to deliver faculty development. A working group of medical educators was formed to review the literature, summarize what is known on the topic, and provide recommendations for future research. This occurred as a track of the 2012 Academic Emergency Medicine (AEM) consensus conference "Education Research in Emergency Medicine: Opportunities, Challenges, and Strategies for Success." The group concluded that the current state of research on these topics is limited. Improvement in understanding will come through research focusing on Kirkpatrick's higher levels of evaluation (behavior and results).
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Assessment of an emergency physician (EP)'s diagnostic reasoning skills is essential for effective training and patient safety. This article summarizes the findings of the diagnostic reasoning assessment track of the 2012 Academic Emergency Medicine consensus conference "Education Research in Emergency Medicine: Opportunities, Challenges, and Strategies for Success." Existing theories of diagnostic reasoning, as they relate to emergency medicine (EM), are outlined. Existing strategies for the assessment of diagnostic reasoning are described. Based on a review of the literature, expert thematic analysis, and iterative consensus agreement during the conference, this article summarizes current assessment gaps and prioritizes future research questions concerning the assessment of diagnostic reasoning in EM.
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Health care struggles to transfer recent discoveries into high-quality medical care. Therefore, translational science seeks to improve the health of patients and communities by studying and promoting the translation of findings from bench research into clinical care. ⋯ The Academic Emergency Medicine (AEM) consensus conference was designed to promote the dissemination of evidence-based education research and practice. We will pull from the work developed by the consensus conference as a means to create a roadmap for future medical education research using the framework of translational science.