The clinical teacher
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The clinical teacher · Jul 2014
The expert patient as teacher: an interprofessional Health Mentors programme.
To meet future health care needs, medical education must increase the emphasis on chronic illness care, interprofessional teamwork, and working in partnership with patients and families. One way to address these needs is to involve patients as teachers in longitudinal interprofessional educational programmes grounded in principles of patient-professional partnerships and shared decision-making. ⋯ Key characteristics, generalisable to other educational programmes, include the role of faculty staff in supporting learning between students and patients, a minimalist structure to promote ownership and creativity, and flexible delivery.
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The provision of excellent patient care is a goal shared by all doctors. The role of social media (SM) in helping medical students and doctors achieve clinical excellence is unknown. Social media may help facilitate the achievement of clinical excellence ⋯ This report supports the hypothesis that SM may help facilitate the achievement of clinical excellence; however, further research is needed into the role of SM in promoting the achievement of clinical excellence.
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Many medical schools teach the principles of evidence-based medicine (EBM) as part of their undergraduate curriculum. Medical students perceive that EBM is valuable to their undergraduate and postgraduate career. Students may experience barriers to applying EBM principles, especially when searching for evidence or identifying high-quality resources. ⋯ The results show that although many students were aware of evidence-based resources, they tended not to use them as their preferred resource. Despite appreciating the value of evidence-based resources, few students were confident in accessing and using such resources for pre-clinical study. A peer-taught workshop in EBM improved students' confidence with, and use of, evidence-based resources.
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Simulation has become widespread among medical educators. Although simulation facilities are available at most teaching institutions, the number of qualified instructors to facilitate post-simulation debriefing is inadequate, resulting in sub-par educational experiences for learners. ⋯ Teledebriefing can create a mutually beneficial faculty instructor network between institutions. By connecting clinical educators from geographically distant areas or from specialties not available locally, learners are exposed to faculty that can provide content expertise and high-quality debriefing during simulation exercises. Evaluating the effectiveness and feasibility of teledebriefing is warranted.
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The Australian general practitioner (GP) teaching workforce will need to expand in order to provide for the increasing number of medical students and doctors-in-training. Understanding factors that motivate GPs to become involved in teaching in their clinical practice environments is important for developing recruitment and retention strategies. ⋯ To increase the recruitment and retention of GP teachers, it is recommended that teaching organisations give more recognition to teaching as a clinical professional development activity, place more emphasis on GPs' personal enjoyment, professional responsibility and pride in teaching, and increase engagement with practice owners.