Advances in medical education and practice
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To evaluate two educational methods for point-of-care ultrasound (POC US) in order to: 1) determine participant test performance and attitudes in using POC US and 2) compare cost and preparation time to run the courses. ⋯ A web-based curriculum in POC US appears to be a promising and potentially time saving alternative to live classroom lectures and seems to offer similar educational benefits for the postgraduate learner.
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There are different teaching methods; such as traditional lectures, bedside teaching, and workshops for clinical medical clerkships. Each method has advantages and disadvantages in different situations. Emergency Medicine (EM) focuses on emergency medical conditions and deals with several emergency procedures. This study aimed to compare traditional teaching methods with teaching methods involving workshops in the EM setting for medical students. ⋯ Teaching EM with workshops improved student satisfaction in EM education for medical students.
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The transition period from foundation program doctor to specialty trainee can be difficult for junior doctors. This difficult period often acts as a major obstacle for learning in the workplace. Existing induction programs are commonly seen as inadequate at easing this transition, and therefore, a pilot study intervention was undertaken to assess if the initiation of "learner-centered induction programs" could help improve the confidence, knowledge acquisition, and satisfaction of junior doctors as they begin specialty training in neurosurgery. ⋯ Finally, as the induction program was of a greater duration than the traditional half day, they felt they had sufficient time to ask questions and address concerns while "on the job". Overall, "learner-centered induction programs" did appear to show promise in this pilot study with regards to increasing the confidence of junior doctors starting a neurosurgical placement and helped ease the transition process from foundation doctor to specialty trainee in neurosurgery. We believe further work to formalize and quantify these findings using questionnaires and a larger sample group as well as across successive is indicated and may help junior doctor learning and transition processes in future practice.
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A commitment to an integrative, non-reductionist clinical and theoretical perspective in medicine that honors the importance of all relevant domains of knowledge, not just "the biological," is clearly evident in Engel's original writings on the biopsychosocial model. And though this model's influence on modern psychiatry (in clinical as well as educational settings) has been significant, a growing body of recent literature is critical of it - charging it with lacking philosophical coherence, insensitivity to patients' subjective experience, being unfaithful to the general systems theory that Engel claimed it be rooted in, and engendering an undisciplined eclecticism that provides no safeguards against either the dominance or the under-representation of any one of the three domains of bio, psycho, or social.
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The autopsy has traditionally been used as a tool in undergraduate medical education, but recent decades have seen a sharp decline in their use for teaching. This study reviewed the current status of the autopsy as a teaching tool by means of systematic review of the medical literature, and a questionnaire study involving UK medical schools. ⋯ Maximal use of autopsies for teaching may be achieved by involvement of anatomical pathology technologists and trainee pathologists in teaching, the development of alternative teaching methods using the principles of the autopsy, and clarification of the law. Students gain most benefit from repeated attendance at autopsies, being taught by enthusiastic teachers, when they have been effectively prepared for the esthetic of dissection and the mortuary environment.