Medical education online
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Medical education online · Jan 2016
How well will you FIT? Use of a modified MMI to assess applicants' compatibility with an emergency medicine residency program.
Emergency medicine residency programs have evaluated the use of Multiple Mini Interviews (MMIs) for applicants. The authors developed an MMI-style method called the Fast Interview Track (FIT) to predict an applicant's 'fit' within an individual residency program. ⋯ FIT provided program leadership with a sense of an applicant's 'fit' within this program. Interview day scores correlated with scores received during residency. Most applicants report a positive experience with FIT sessions. FIT provides a useful tool to recruit applicants who fit with the residency program.
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Medical education online · Jan 2016
Observational StudyFaculty development in point of care ultrasound for internists.
Lack of general medicine faculty expertise is a likely contributor to the slow adoption of point of care ultrasound (POCUS) by internal medicine (IM) residency training programs. We developed a 10-week faculty development program, during which 15 faculty members participated in 2 hours and 10 hours of online didactic and hands-on training, respectively. Pre-post comparisons showed that there were statistically significant improvements in faculty participants' ability to interpret images (p<0.001), perceived understanding of the capabilities and limitations of POCUS (p=0.003), comfort using POCUS to make clinical decisions (p=0.003), and perceptions regarding the extent to which POCUS can improve patient care (p=0.026). The next challenge for IM programs is to improve access to ultrasound machines and provide follow-up workshops to facilitate further development of skills and integration of POCUS into daily practice by general medicine faculty.
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Medical education online · Jan 2016
A word-count approach to analyze linguistic patterns in the reflective writings of medical students.
Teaching reflection and administering reflective writing assignments to students are widely practiced and discussed in medical education and health professional education. However, little is known about how medical students use language to construct their narratives. Exploring students' linguistic patterns in their reflective writings can facilitate understanding the scope and facets of their reflections and their representational or communication approaches to share their experiences. Moreover, research findings regarding gender differences in language use are inconsistent. Therefore, we attempted to examine how females and males differ in their use of words in reflective writing within our research circumstance to detect the unique and gender-specific approaches to learning and their applications. ⋯ To enhance students' empathy toward the psychosocial issues faced by patients and their family members, students should be encouraged to explore the domain of psychological processes by identifying and expressing their affective and perceptual experiences. Researchers in future studies should use outcome measures such as self-awareness or empathy to determine the overall effectiveness of reflective writing and how changes in linguistic patterns affect such outcomes.
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Medical education online · Jan 2016
A model for training medical student innovators: the Harvard Medical School Center for Primary Care Abundance Agents of Change program.
In 2013, the Harvard Medical School Center for Primary Care established the Abundance Agents of Change (AoC) program to promote interprofessional learning and innovation, increase partnership between 15 academic and community health centers (CHCs) in Boston's most under-served communities, and increase medical student interest in primary care careers. ⋯ Based on our experience and evaluation data, we believe that this program is a replicable way to train students as innovators and members of interprofessional teams to address the current complex healthcare environment.