Family medicine
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Over 70% of smokers visit a physician annually, and physicians are well-positioned to assist patients in smoking cessation. Residency offers the ideal setting to train physicians in best practices for treatment of nicotine dependence. We hypothesized that experiential learning during a smoking cessation medical clinic (SCMC) rotation would be associated with an improvement in smoking cessation practice of internal medicine (IM) interns in outpatient primary care and inpatient settings. ⋯ SCMC experience positively impacted smoking cessation treatment by IM interns, causing a measurable change in their practice.
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Chronic pain is a common and important disease state in North America, but many medical students and practicing physicians feel poorly prepared to treat this condition. ⋯ Chronic pain management is currently taught in only about half of family medicine clerkships. Confidence in caring for chronic pain patients is the only characteristic of clerkship directors that predicts whether the subject of chronic pain will be taught within the family medicine clerkship.
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Professional silos still exist in practice and education. At our institution, all medical students are exposed to an interprofessional (IP) practice experience during their family medicine clerkship. This study examines the impact of this IP practice experience on students' attitudes toward IP learning. In addition, this study examines the further impact on attitudes of a subset of students who were exposed to the IP practice experience integrated within an intentional IPE curriculum built to support and enhance experiential learning. ⋯ Attitudes toward Teamwork and Patient-Centeredness were more favorable for all respondents after exposure to the IP practice experience. Differences by school might be due to professional culture. Students exposed to the integrated experiential model had more favorable responses across all subscales than those not exposed. For the integrated experiential model to be deemed valuable, assessment of behavior change is warranted.
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Reflective writing in medicine allows for the opportunity to analyze, interpret, and learn from clinical experiences. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the beneficial effects of reflective reading and writing for a department using a weekly listserve. ⋯ As departments struggle with provider burnout and feelings of being overwhelmed and disconnected, strategies like a reflective writing listserve may be a means to improve support and inspire clinicians and learners to feel fulfilled.
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Despite a growing demand for skilled clinician-educators, residents today rarely receive formal training in clinical teaching, curriculum development, administration, leadership, or educational scholarship. The authors describe the development, implementation, and preliminary evaluation of the O'Connor Stanford Leaders in Education Residency (OSLER) track, a novel clinician-educator track within the family medicine residency program affiliated with Stanford University School of Medicine. ⋯ More research is needed to assess the effectiveness and reproducibility of this clinician-educator track. If proven, this model may be replicated at other academic medical centers.