BMC medical education
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BMC medical education · Jul 2016
Publication activities of German junior researchers in academic medicine: which factors impact impact factors?
Previous studies have shown medical students in Germany to have little interest in research while at the same time there is a lack of physician scientists. This study's aim is to investigate factors influencing publication productivity of physicians during and after finishing their medical doctorate. ⋯ The study's results support the assumption about women's underrepresentation in science as well as the relevance of structured doctoral study programs for preparing and recruiting young academics in medicine for scientific careers. Promoting women and further development of structured doctoral study programs are highly recommended.
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BMC medical education · Jul 2016
Comparative StudyStress and wellbeing of junior doctors in Australia: a comparison with American doctors and population norms.
Stress in doctors adversely affects decision-making, memory, information-recall and attention, thereby negatively impacting upon the provision of safe and high quality patient care. As such, stress in doctors has been subject to increasing scientific scrutiny and has amassed greater public awareness in recent years. The aims of this study are to describe stress levels and the psychological wellbeing of current junior medical officers (JMOs), and to compare this to their predecessors, American surgical residents and population norms. ⋯ Doctors are still at risk despite an improvement in their stress levels and overall mental health. They are less likely to be stressed and to have better mental health if they have less career-related anxiety. This has implications for the medical education and training of our junior doctors.
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BMC medical education · Jul 2016
Understanding students' readiness for interprofessional learning in an Asian context: a mixed-methods study.
Healthcare is generally provided by various health professionals acting together. Unfortunately, poor communication and collaboration within such healthcare teams often prevent its members from actively engaging in collaborative decision-making. Interprofessional education (IPE) which prepares health professionals for their collaborative role in the healthcare system may partially address this problem. This study aimed to investigate: 1) students' readiness for IPE in an Asian context, 2) the most important factors influencing students' perceptions of IPE, 3) the reasons underlying such perceptions, and 4) the factors mitigating or promoting their sense of readiness. ⋯ Students were generally favourable to IPE, appreciating the opportunity it offered them to hone their interprofessional leadership, collaboration and communication skills and to learn to address the problem of role blurring. Hence, we judge the Asian context ready to implement IPE, allowing health professions students in Asian countries to reap its benefits. The present study revealed several important reasons underlying students' positive and negative perceptions of IPE implementation which may be addressed during the interprofessional learning process.
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BMC medical education · Jul 2016
Compassion training in healthcare: what are patients' perspectives on training healthcare providers?
The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate advanced cancer patients' perspectives on the importance, feasibility, teaching methods, and issues associated with training healthcare providers in compassionate care. ⋯ This study provides insight on compassion training for both current and future healthcare providers, from the perspectives of the end recipients of healthcare provider training - patients. Developing a theoretical base for patient centred, evidence-informed, compassion training is a crucial initial step toward the further development of this core healthcare competency.
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BMC medical education · Jul 2016
Development and testing of study tools and methods to examine ethnic bias and clinical decision-making among medical students in New Zealand: The Bias and Decision-Making in Medicine (BDMM) study.
Health provider racial/ethnic bias and its relationship to clinical decision-making is an emerging area of research focus in understanding and addressing ethnic health inequities. Examining potential racial/ethnic bias among medical students may provide important information to inform medical education and training. This paper describes the development, pretesting and piloting of study content, tools and processes for an online study of racial/ethnic bias (comparing Māori and New Zealand European) and clinical decision-making among final year medical students in New Zealand (NZ). ⋯ Robust processes are required in the development of study content to assess racial/ethnic bias in order to optimise the validity of specific measures, ensure acceptability and minimise potential problems. This paper has utility for other researchers in this area by informing potential development approaches and identifying possible measurement tools.