Effect of the Bologna bachelor degree on considerations of medical students to interrupt or terminate their medical training.

Background: The bachelor-master system potentially enables medical students to stop or temporary interrupt their training after obtaining a bachelor degree. A survey at the time of introduction of this two-cycle model in Dutch medical education showed little interest among students in these possibilities.

Aims: To investigate students' considerations to stop or pause now that this model is well established.

Essential facets of competence that enable trust in medical graduates: a ranking study among physician educators in two countries.

One way to operationalize the assessment of trainees in a competency-based context is to determine whether they can be entrusted with critical activities. To determine which facets of competence (FOCs) are most informative for such decisions, we performed a Delphi study among Dutch educators. In the current study, the resulting list of facets of competence was evaluated among experienced Dutch and German clinical educators to determine which facets appear most relevant and to evaluate the agreement among experts in different countries as a support for their external validity.

Increase in medical knowledge during the final year of undergraduate medical education in Germany.

Aims: In Germany, the final year of undergraduate medical education ('practice year') consists of three 16-week clinical attachments, two of which are internal medicine and surgery. Students can choose a specific specialty for their third 16-week attachment. Practice year students do not receive specific teaching to prepare them for the National Licensing Examination.

Bedside teaching in medical education: a literature review.

Bedside teaching is seen as one of the most important modalities in teaching a variety of skills important for the medical profession, but its use is declining. A literature review was conducted to reveal its strengths, the causes of its decline and future perspectives, the evidence with regard to learning clinical skills and patient/student/teacher satisfaction. PubMed, Embase and the Cochrane library were systematically searched with regard to terms related to bedside teaching.

Online formative tests linked to microlectures improving academic achievement.

Background: Online formative tests (OFTs) are powerful tools to direct student learning behavior, especially when enriched with specific feedback.

Aim: In the present study, we have investigated the effect of OFTs enriched with hyperlinks to microlectures on examination scores.

Methods: OFTs, available one week preceding each midterm and the final exams, could be used voluntarily.

Understanding trust as an essential element of trainee supervision and learning in the workplace.

Clinical supervision requires that supervisors make decisions about how much independence to allow their trainees for patient care tasks. The simultaneous goals of ensuring quality patient care and affording trainees appropriate and progressively greater responsibility require that the supervising physician trusts the trainee. Trust allows the trainee to experience increasing levels of participation and responsibility in the workplace in a way that builds competence for future practice.

Motivational profiles of medical students: association with study effort, academic performance and exhaustion.

Background: Students enter the medical study with internally generated motives like genuine interest (intrinsic motivation) and/or externally generated motives like parental pressure or desire for status or prestige (controlled motivation). According to Self-determination theory (SDT), students could differ in their study effort, academic performance and adjustment to the study depending on the endorsement of intrinsic motivation versus controlled motivation. The objectives of this study were to generate motivational profiles of medical students using combinations of high or low intrinsic and controlled motivation and test whether different motivational profiles are associated with different study outcomes.

Evidence-based medicine training in undergraduate medical education: a review and critique of the literature published 2006-2011.

Purpose: To characterize recent evidence-based medicine (EBM) educational interventions for medical students and suggest future directions for EBM education.

Method: The authors searched the MEDLINE, Scopus, Educational Resource Information Center, and Evidence-Based Medicine Reviews databases for English-language articles published between 2006 and 2011 that featured medical students and interventions addressing multiple EBM skills. They extracted data on learner and instructor characteristics, educational settings, teaching methods, and EBM skills covered.

Frameworks for learner assessment in medicine: AMEE Guide No. 78.

In any evaluation system of medical trainees there is an underlying set of assumptions about what is to be evaluated (i.e., which goals reflect the values of the system or institution), what kind of observations or assessments are useful to allow judgments 1 ; and how these are to be analyzed and compared to a standard of what is to be achieved by the learner.

Graduates from vertically integrated curricula.

Background:   Vertical integration (VI) has been recommended as an undergraduate medical curriculum structure that fosters the transition to postgraduate training. Our definition of VI includes: (1) the provision of early clinical experience; (2) the integration of biomedical sciences with clinical cases; (3) long clerkships during the final year; and (4) increasing levels of clinical responsibility for students. The aim of the current study is to support the hypothesis that medical graduates from VI programmes meet the expectations of postgraduate supervisors better than those from non-VI curricula.

Developing entrustable professional activities as the basis for assessment of competence in an internal medicine residency: a feasibility study.

Background: Graduate medical education programs assess trainees' performance to determine readiness for unsupervised practice. Entrustable professional activities (EPAs) are a novel approach for assessing performance of core professional tasks.

Aim: To describe a pilot and feasibility evaluation of two EPAs for competency-based assessment in internal medicine (IM) residency.

Stages and transitions in medical education around the world: clarifying structures and terminology.

Background: In a world that increasingly serves the international exchange of information on medical training, many students, physicians and educators encounter numerous variations in curricula, degrees, point of licensing and terminology.

Aims: The aim of this study was to shed some light for those trying to compare medical training formats across countries.

Methods: We surveyed a sample of key informants from 40 countries.

Effects of two different instructional formats on scores and reliability of a script concordance test.

The script concordance test (SCT) is designed to assess clinical reasoning by adapting the likelihood of a case diagnosis, based on provided new information. In the standard instructions students are asked to exclude alternative diagnoses they have in mind when answering the questions, but it might be more authentic to include these. Fifty-nine final-year medical students completed an SCT.

Stimulating medical education research in the Netherlands.

Background: Since the 1970s, the Dutch have been active innovators and researchers in the medical education domain. With regards to the quantity of publications in the medical education literature, the Netherlands rank second among countries in Europe and fourth worldwide over the past years, related to the journals with highest impact factors.

Aim: We attempted to analyse what made this country so productive by exploring the backgrounds of this success.

Why receiving feedback collides with self determination.

Providing feedback to trainees in clinical settings is considered important for development and acquisition of skill. Despite recommendations how to provide feedback that have appeared in the literature, research shows that its effectiveness is often disappointing. To understand why receiving feedback is more difficult than it appears, this paper views the feedback process through the lens of Self-Determination Theory (SDT).

Bologna in Medicine Anno 2012: experiences of European medical schools that implemented a Bologna two-cycle curriculum--an AMEE-MEDINE2 survey.

Background: The 1999 Bologna Agreement implies a European harmonization of higher education using three cycles: bachelor and master before doctorate. Undergraduate medical programmes were restructured in only seven of the 47 countries.

Aim: Given the debate about a two-cycle system in undergraduate medical education, providing an overview of experiences in medical schools that applied this structure was the purpose of this investigation.

Nurses' and managers' perceptions of continuing professional development for older and younger nurses: a focus group study.

Background: Continuing professional development of nurses is increasingly necessary to keep abreast of rapid changes in nursing care. Concurrently, the nursing workforce is growing older. Therefore, future strategies for continuing professional development should be directed at both younger and older nurses.

The impact of various transitions in the medical education continuum on perceived readiness of trainees to be entrusted with professional tasks.

Background: Medical trainees go through various transitions during the medical education continuum.

Aims: The aim of this study was to understand how transitions in licensure and increased responsibility may affect trainees' competence development.

Method: We carried out a questionnaire study in Leeds (UK).

Construct validation of progress testing to measure knowledge and visual skills in radiology.

Background: The Dutch Radiology Progress Test (DRPT) monitors the acquisition of knowledge and visual skills of radiology residents in the Netherlands.

Aim: We aimed to evaluate the quality of progress testing in postgraduate radiology training by studying the reliability of the DRPT and finding an indication for its construct validity. We expected that knowledge would increase rapidly in the first years of residency, leveling-off in later years, to allow for the development of visual skills.