Journal of medical education
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The purpose of the study reported here was to provide descriptive information about dean's letters, which are comprehensive summary letters sent near the end of students' undergraduate medical training by medical school deans to be part of the students' residency applications. Deans of student affairs at 124 U. S. medical schools were surveyed regarding composition of these letters at their institution. ⋯ Negative information on students was addressed inconsistently by the writers. Eighty-five percent of the writers categorized their students in final summary statements, but many of these failed to provide descriptions of the categories used or explanatory data. The present authors make recommendations for writing more credible and useful letters.
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The resident is a central figure in the education of medical students and other residents. In order to examine the ways in which residents fulfill their teaching responsibilities, the authors observed 14 first- and second-year internal medicine residents as they reviewed a total of 158 cases during work rounds. Inpatient work rounds were selected for study because in this setting an attending faculty member is not present and the resident bears total responsibility for initiating any teaching that occurs. ⋯ Away from the bedside, the residents frequently used brief lectures to teach. The least frequently observed teaching behaviors involved referring to the literature, giving feedback, demonstrating techniques and procedures, and asking questions. Following these observations, the authors initiated a course on clinical teaching for residents.
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In meeting the challenge of educating students to be physicians in the 21st century, schools of medicine must develop management systems that promote change and encourage innovation. In this paper, the authors describe the approach used by the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine over the past five years for managing its programs. The major elements of this management scheme are centralization of administrative functions concerned with medical education; networks for communication about education problems and issues; a system for obtaining consensus among the institution's constituencies on the goals of the school's educational programs; a system for including information on teaching performance as an element in the promotion process; and multiple systems for providing the faculty, students, and administration with information about the quality of the school's educational activities.