Perspectives on Medical Education

https://link.springer.com/journal/40037

List of Papers (Total 699)

Harmony or dissonance? The affordances of palliative care learning for emerging professional identity

Patient demographics demand physicians who are competent in and embrace palliative care as part of their professional identity. Published literature describes ways that learners acquire knowledge, skills and attitudes for palliative care. These studies are, however, limited by their focus on the individual where learning is about acquisition. Viewing learning as a process of...

Learner handover: Perspectives and recommendations from the front-line

Current medical education models increasingly rely on longitudinal assessments to document learner progress over time. This longitudinal focus has re-kindled discussion regarding learner handover—where assessments are shared across supervisors, rotations, and educational phases, to support learner growth and ease transitions. The authors explored the opinions of, experiences with...

You can have both: Coaching to promote clinical competency and professional identity formation

Coaching is a critical tool to guide student development of clinical competency and formation of professional identity in medicine, two inextricably linked concepts. Because progress toward clinical competence is linked to thinking, acting and feeling like a physician, a coach’s knowledge about a learner’s development of clinical skills is essential to promoting the learner’s...

The reliability characteristics of the REFLECT rubric for assessing reflective capacity through expressive writing assignments: A replication study

The medical education community has implemented writing exercises that foster critical analysis and nurture reflective capacity. The REFLECT rubric (Wald et al. 2012) was developed to address the challenge of assessing these written reflections. The objective of this replication work is to explore the reproducibility of the reliability characteristics presented by the REFLECT...

A national strategy to engage medical students in otolaryngology-head and neck surgery medical education: the LearnENT ambassador program

In the realm of medical education, student-led ambassador programs represent an innovative approach to increase awareness about medical education resources. LearnENT is an internationally recognized otolaryngology-head and neck surgery (OHNS) smartphone app and website designed for medical trainees to learn about OHNS. However, upon the initial launch of the app, there was a lack...

Considerations for using race and ethnicity as quantitative variables in medical education research

Throughout history, race and ethnicity have been used as key descriptors to categorize and label individuals. The use of these concepts as variables can impact resources, policy, and perceptions in medical education. Despite the pervasive use of race and ethnicity as quantitative variables, it is unclear whether researchers use them in their proper context. In this Eye Opener, we...

Redesigning continuing professional development: Harnessing design thinking to go from needs assessment to mandate

The world of medicine is constantly changing, and with it the continuing professional development (CPD) needs of physicians. As the CPD landscape is shifting away from unidirectional delivery of knowledge through live large group learning (conferences) and is placing increased emphasis on new approaches for skills training not taught a decade ago, a new approach is needed. Using...

Beyond right or wrong: More effective feedback for formative multiple-choice tests

The role of feedback in test-enhanced learning is an understudied area that has the potential to improve student learning. This study investigates the influence of different forms of post-test feedback on retention and transfer of biomedical knowledge within a test-enhanced learning framework. 64 participants from a Canadian and an Australian medical school sat two single-best...

A layered analysis of self-explanation and structured reflection to support clinical reasoning in medical students

Self-explanation and structured reflection have been studied independently with results suggesting that both learning interventions can effectively support medical students’ clinical reasoning development. Given this evidence, medical schools may want/begin to implement these interventions in their curricula. Implementing educational interventions requires educators to maintain...

Developing and piloting a well-being program for hospital-based physicians

Demanding working conditions in medical practice pressurise the well-being of physicians across all career stages, likely harming patients and healthcare systems. Structural solutions to harmful working conditions are necessary as well as interventions to support physicians in contemporary practice. We report on developing and piloting a team-based program for physicians to...

Exploring current physicians’ failure to communicate clinical feedback back to transferring physicians after transitions of patient care responsibility: A mixed methods study

After patient care transitions occur, communication from the current physician back to the transferring physician may be an important source of clinical feedback for learning from outcomes of previous reasoning processes. Factors associated with this communication are not well understood. This study clarifies how often, and for what reasons, current physicians do or do not...

A mobile app to capture EPA assessment data: Utilizing the consolidated framework for implementation research to identify enablers and barriers to engagement

Mobile apps that utilize the framework of entrustable professional activities (EPAs) to capture and deliver feedback are being implemented. If EPA apps are to be successfully incorporated into programmatic assessment, a better understanding of how they are experienced by the end-users will be necessary. The authors conducted a qualitative study using the Consolidated Framework...

Are we generating more assessments without added value? Surgical trainees’ perceptions of and receptiveness to cross-specialty assessment

Competency-based medical education (CBME) hinges on robust assessment. However, integrating regular workplace-based assessment within demanding and sometimes chaotic clinical environments remains challenging. Many faculty lack assessment expertise, and some programs lack the infrastructure and faculty numbers to fulfill CBME’s mandate. Recognizing this, we designed and...

Mindful medical practice: An innovative core course to prepare medical students for clerkship

Medical students show a decline in empathy and ethical reasoning during medical school that is most marked during clerkship. We believe that part of the problem is that students do not have the skills and ways of being and relating necessary to deal effectively with the overwhelming clinical experience of clerkship. At McGill University in Montreal, starting in January 2015, we...

Scenes, symbols and social roles: raising the curtain on OSCE performances

Objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs) are a complex form of assessment, where candidates can interact with ‘patients’ in a constructed socio-clinical encounter. Conceptualizing OSCEs as a complex socially and culturally situated activity offers important research affordances. There are concerns that OSCEs may encourage more strategic ‘tick-box’ candidate behaviours...

Evaluating the reliability of gestalt quality ratings of medical education podcasts: A METRIQ study

Podcasts are increasingly being used for medical education. Studies have found that the assessment of the quality of online resources can be challenging. We sought to determine the reliability of gestalt quality assessment of education podcasts in emergency medicine. An international, interprofessional sample of raters was recruited through social media, direct contact, and the...

Measurement precision at the cut score in medical multiple choice exams: Theory matters

In high-stakes assessment, the measurement precision of pass-fail decisions is of great importance. A concept for analyzing the measurement precision at the cut score is conditional reliability, which describes measurement precision for every score achieved in an exam. We compared conditional reliabilities in Classical Test Theory (CTT) and Item Response Theory (IRT) with a...

Development and evaluation of a simulation-based transition to clerkship course

Transition to clerkship courses bridge the curricular gap between preclinical and clinical medical education. However, despite the use of simulation-based teaching techniques in other aspects of medical training, these techniques have not been adequately described in transition courses. We describe the development, structure and evaluation of a simulation-based transition to...

Could application of leader-member exchange theory have saved a residency mentorship program?

Mentorship may offer protégés numerous benefits including improved self-esteem, increased interest in research, and/or enhanced productivity. Without proper planning, reflection, and evaluation, however, mentorship programs may result in undesirable consequences. In this paper we describe a mentorship program designed to improve psychosocial support and professional development...

“The storm has arrived”: the impact of SARS-CoV-2 on medical students

In a few weeks, the global community has witnessed, and for some of us experienced first-hand, the human costs of the COVID-19 pandemic. There is incredible variability in how countries are choosing to thwart the disease’s outbreak, sparking intense discussions around what it means to teach and learn in the era of COVID-19, and more specifically, the role medical students play in...