Academic medicine : journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges
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Comparative Study
Psychometric properties of a standardized-patient checklist and rating-scale form used to assess interpersonal and communication skills.
The results show that the SP checklist scores and the SP ratings of interpersonal and communication skills have comparable psychometric properties. The reliabilities of the five-item rating form (.76) and the single global rating of patient satisfaction (.70) were slightly higher than the reliability of the 17-item checklist (.65); this finding is of particular significance, given the greater length of the checklist. Also, the checklist scores and ratings appear to be measuring the same underlying dimension, with correlations of the checklist with the five ratings and with the single global rating being .82 and .81, respectively. ⋯ Thus, the faculty ratings would provide a basis for case development and refinement, including scoring and standard setting, and scores on the checklist would serve as a proxy for the gold-standard faculty ratings. The study suggests that SP ratings may be more efficient and more reliable than SP checklists for assessing interpersonal and communication skills. The study also demonstrates that global ratings by SPs (or by expert physician observers) can provide a basis for SP-test construction.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical Trial
Standardized patients as a measure of change in the ability of family physicians to detect and manage alcohol abuse.
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Little is known about how internal medicine residents train for and practice telephone management. To address this deficiency, a national survey of program directors at accredited internal medicine training sites was conducted to evaluate residents' training for and practice of telephone medicine. ⋯ Few internal medicine programs offered training in telephone management. When training occurred, it was usually limited and informal. Most program directors felt that training was important and that current training efforts were unsatisfactory, emphasizing the need for curriculum development and implementation in telephone management.
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This study was undertaken to promote communication among faculty regarding the impact of a proposed goal that 50% of the graduates of Jefferson Medical College enter generalist careers. Since the opinions and attitudes of faculty regarding career decisions may directly or indirectly influence students, the authors investigated faculty's views of the optimal ratio of primary care to non-primary care physicians in the workforce and their perceptions of the effect on medical education, research, and health care delivery if the 50% goal were to be mandated. ⋯ The faculty members' positive and negative views of the proposed reform can provide useful information to the institution in understanding the potential impediments to increasing the numbers of generalist graduates. The generalists had significantly different views from the subspecialists about the impact of increasing the proportion of primary care physicians on health care delivery and research. In general the primary care physicians were more likely to view the proposed changes as beneficial than were the non-primary care physicians.