BMC medical education
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BMC medical education · Oct 2012
Managing dental emergencies: a descriptive study of the effects of a multimodal educational intervention for primary care providers at six months.
Clinicians providing primary emergency medical care often receive little training in the management of dental emergencies. A multimodal educational intervention was designed to address this lack of training. Sustained competency in managing dental emergencies and thus the confidence to provide this care well after an educational intervention is of particular importance for remote and rural healthcare providers where access to professional development training may be lacking. ⋯ The sustained effects of a brief multimodal educational intervention in managing dental emergencies on practice confidence and proficiency demonstrates its value as an educational model that could be applied to other settings and health professional groups providing emergency primary care, particularly in rural and remote settings.
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BMC medical education · Oct 2012
Quality of written narrative feedback and reflection in a modified mini-clinical evaluation exercise: an observational study.
Research has shown that narrative feedback, (self) reflections and a plan to undertake and evaluate improvements are key factors for effective feedback on clinical performance. We investigated the quantity of narrative comments comprising feedback (by trainers), self-reflections (by trainees) and action plans (by trainer and trainee) entered on a mini-CEX form that was modified for use in general practice training and to encourage trainers and trainees to provide narrative comments. In view of the importance of specificity as an indicator of feedback quality, we additionally examined the specificity of the comments. ⋯ The frequency of self-reflection and action plans varied, all comments were generally specific and there were substantial and consistent differences between trainee-trainer pairs in the specificity of comments. We therefore conclude that feedback is not so much determined by the instrument as by the users. Interventions to improve the educational effects of the feedback procedure should therefore focus more on the users than on the instruments.