Assessment of a Brief Handoff Skills Workshop for Incoming Interns: Do past Handoff Experiences Impact Training Outcomes?

Background: Patient care handoffs are a core professional activity that incoming interns are expected to perform without direct supervision upon starting residency, yet training in medical schools is inconsistent.

Objective: To implement a brief handoff communication workshop for incoming interns and determine whether learner-level determinants were associated with differences in training outcomes.

Methods: We conducted a one-hour interactive handoff skills workshop for all incoming interns at a Midwestern academic medical center.

Assessment of initial serum vancomycin trough concentrations and their association with initial empirical weight-based vancomycin dosing and development of nephrotoxicity in children: a multicenter retrospective study.

Study Objectives: To determine whether a relationship exists between initial serum vancomycin trough concentrations and initial empirical vancomycin dose, patient weight, and patient age, and to determine the risks for vancomycin-associated nephrotoxicity in pediatric patients stratified by hospital setting.

Design: Stepwise linear and multinomial logistic regression analysis of retrospectively collected data.

Setting: Two geographically distinct children's tertiary care medical centers.

Alliance for clinical education perspective paper: recommendations for redesigning the "final year" of medical school.

Background: Although medical school typically lasts 4 years, little attention has been devoted to the structure of the educational experience that takes place during the final year of medical school.

Summary: In this perspectives paper, we outline goals for the 4th year of medical school to facilitate a transition from undergraduate to graduate medical education. We provide recommendations for capstone courses, subinternship rotations, and specialty-specific schedules, and we conclude with recommendations to medical students and medical schools for how to use the recommendations contained in this document.

Improving child and adolescent psychiatry education for medical students: an inter-organizational collaborative action plan.

Objective: A new Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in Medical Education (CAPME) Task Force, sponsored by the Association for Directors of Medical Student Education in Psychiatry (ADMSEP), has created an inter-organizational partnership between child and adolescent psychiatry (CAP) educators and medical student educators in psychiatry. This paper outlines the task force design and strategic plan to address the long-standing dearth of CAP training for medical students.

Method: The CAPME ADMSEP Task Force, formed in 2010, identified common challenges to teaching CAP among ADMSEP's CAPME Task Force members, utilizing focus-group discussions and a needs-assessment survey.

Enhancing situational interest in pediatrics.

Background: Individual interest, something that persists regardless of the situation, and situational interest, finding personal value in an educational context, have not been studied in medical student education.

Objective: To determine if individualized case discussions enhance interest in pediatric medicine.

Methods: During the 2008/2009 academic year, 88 clerkship students participated in clinical case discussions.

Clinical experience and examination performance: is there a correlation?

Context: The Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) requires there to be: '...

Teaching patient communication skills to medical students: a review of randomized controlled trials.

Tools to examine the effects of teaching interventions across a variety of studies are needed. The authors perform a meta-analysis of 24 randomized controlled trials evaluating the effects of teaching on medical students' patient communication skills. Study quality is rated using a modified Jadad score, and standardized mean difference effect size (d) measures are calculated.

A comparison of clinical pediatric patient encounters in university medical center and community private practice settings.

Background: Growing numbers of medical students complete clerkships in community private practice (CPP) settings instead of the more traditional university-based clinics, yet few empirical studies have evaluated how setting type impacts clinical experiences, skill development, and student satisfaction.

Objective: This study compared the pediatric patient encounters seen by third-year medical students in university medical center (UMC) and CPP settings.

Methods: Third-year medical students were required to keep a log of all patients seen during their 8-week pediatric clerkship.