BMC medical education
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BMC medical education · Jan 2008
Controlled Clinical TrialCan teaching agenda-setting skills to physicians improve clinical interaction quality? A controlled intervention.
Physicians and medical educators have repeatedly acknowledged the inadequacy of communication skills training in the medical school curriculum and opportunities to improve these skills in practice. This study of a controlled intervention evaluates the effect of teaching practicing physicians the skill of "agenda-setting" on patients' experiences with care. The agenda-setting intervention aimed to engage clinicians in the practice of initiating patient encounters by eliciting the full set of concerns from the patient's perspective and using that information to prioritize and negotiate which clinical issues should most appropriately be dealt with and which (if any) should be deferred to a subsequent visit. ⋯ A simple and modest behavioral training for practicing physicians has potential to positively affect physician-patient relationship interaction quality. It will be important to evaluate the effect of more extensive trainings, including those that work with physicians on a broader set of communication techniques.
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Internet can serve in opening the door to a brand new world of high quality medical information. However, the chaotic size of data available in the WWW is often misleading. We sought to provide the world medical community with a web portal that may be used as a clearinghouse providing the outlet for dissemination of high quality WWW educational products. ⋯ Based on the incorporation of simple and tested educational strategies such as case based instruction and interactive learning, e-meducation.org aims to become a prototype platform that offers a more convenient interface to existing products, resources and medical contents.
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BMC medical education · Jan 2008
A skin abscess model for teaching incision and drainage procedures.
Skin and soft tissue infections are increasingly prevalent clinical problems, and it is important for health care practitioners to be well trained in how to treat skin abscesses. A realistic model of abscess incision and drainage will allow trainees to learn and practice this basic physician procedure. ⋯ This manuscript provides a detailed description of our model of abscess incision and drainage for medical education. Clinical educators can incorporate this model into skills labs or demonstrations for teaching this basic procedure.
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BMC medical education · Jan 2008
Undergraduate technical skills training guided by student tutors--analysis of tutors' attitudes, tutees' acceptance and learning progress in an innovative teaching model.
Skills labs provide a sheltered learning environment. As close supervision and individual feedback were proven to be important in ensuring effective skills training, we implemented a cross-year peer tutor system in our skills lab of internal medicine that allowed intense training sessions with small learning groups (3-4 students) taught by one student tutor. ⋯ This study demonstrates that peer teaching in undergraduate technical clinical skills training is feasible and widely accepted among tutees, provided that the tutors receive sufficient training and supervision.
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BMC medical education · Jan 2008
Satisfaction with web-based training in an integrated healthcare delivery network: do age, education, computer skills and attitudes matter?
Healthcare institutions spend enormous time and effort to train their workforce. Web-based training can potentially streamline this process. However the deployment of web-based training in a large-scale setting with a diverse healthcare workforce has not been evaluated. The aim of this study was to evaluate the satisfaction of healthcare professionals with web-based training and to determine the predictors of such satisfaction including age, education status and computer proficiency. ⋯ The study shows that web-based training when tailored to learners' background, is perceived as a satisfactory mode of learning by an interdisciplinary group of healthcare professionals, irrespective of age, education level or prior computer experience. Future studies should aim to measure the long-term outcomes of web-based training.