Teaching and learning in medicine
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Interviews are most important in resident selection. Structured interviews are more reliable than unstructured ones. ⋯ The structured interview tool provided good although suboptimal interrater reliability. Increasing the number of scenarios improves reliability as does applying differential weights to the rating scale anchors. The latter would also facilitate the identification of those candidates with extreme ratings.
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In 2001, the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California initiated a major curriculum reform with fully integrated teaching of the basic sciences. ⋯ The SPP design represents a uniquely successful pathway to curriculum redesign.
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Assessment in the context of uncertainty using the script concordance test: more meaning for scores.
The Script Concordance Test (SCT) uses authentic, ill-defined clinical cases to compare medical learners' judgment skills with those of experienced physicians. SCT scores are meant to measure the degree of concordance between the performance of examinees and that of the reference panel. Raw test scores have meaning only if statistics (mean and standard deviation) describing the panel's performance are concurrently provided. ⋯ This transformation method proposes a common metric basis for reporting SCT scores and provides examinees with clear, interpretable insights into their performance relative to that of physicians of the field. We recommend reporting SCT scores with the mean and standard deviation of panel scores set at standard scores of 80 and 5, respectively. Beyond SCT, our transformation method may be generalizable to the scoring of other test formats in which the performance of examinees and those of a panel of reference undertaking the same cognitive tasks are compared.
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Night float rotations are being increasingly used in the era of resident physician work-hour regulations, but their impact on resident education is not clear. ⋯ Internal medicine residents at a university-based program have negative opinions regarding the educational value of night float rotations. Further work is necessary to determine whether problems exist across programs and specialties.
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Incorporation of evidence based medicine into the undergraduate curriculum varies from school to school. The purpose of this study was to determine if an online course in evidence based medicine run concurrently with the clinical clerkships in the 3rd year of undergraduate medical education provided effective instruction in evidence based medicine (EBM). ⋯ Medical students successfully acquired and independently applied EBM skills following extended, online, faculty mentored instruction. This method of instruction provided uniform instruction across geographic sites and medical specialties and permitted efficient use of faculty time.