A comparison of unguided vs guided case-based instruction on the surgery clerkship.

Background: Guided case-based instruction is an effective and efficient means of learning for third year medical students on the surgery clerkship. Compared with an unguided format for teaching biliary disease, we observed greater student satisfaction as well as a more efficient utilization of student as well as faculty time with the guided instruction.

Objective: While case-based instruction (CBI) has become an extremely popular teaching modality during the first 2 years of medical school, there has been little published regarding its utilization during the clinical years of medical school.

The use of a lightly preserved cadaver and full thickness pig skin to teach technical skills on the surgery clerkship--a response to the economic pressures facing academic medicine today.

Background: In response to declining instruction in technical skills, the authors instituted a novel method to teach basic procedural skills to medical students beginning the surgery clerkship.

Methods: Sixty-three medical students participated in a skills training laboratory. The first part of the laboratory taught basic suturing skills, and the second involved a cadaver with pig skin grafted to different anatomic locations.

Revascularization in peripheral vascular disease: stents, atherectomies, lasers, and thrombolytics.

Peripheral vascular disease affects a significant number of individuals. Signs and symptoms may develop because of partial or total vessel occlusion due to plaque, dissection, or thrombus. Percutaneous transluminal angioplasty is effective as an independent intervention to open occluded vessels and also may be combined with other nonsurgical therapies such as stents, atherectomy, or laser treatments.

Quality performance development for education: implementation of a plan.

Measuring or evaluating the impact of educational interventions has presented a challenge for the educator. Implementing a quality performance improvement (QPI) plan addressing education processes and outcomes provides an expansion and extension of QPI, as well as validates the pivotal and evolving role of the educator in measuring patient care outcome. This article describes an education-based QPI plan using the 10-step process identified by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO).