Assessing Student Performance Using a Novel Rubric Based on the Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition.

Objective: Pharmacy student performance on practicum was previously assessed using a Likert scale from 0 to 9, resulting in challenges with clarity and assessor subjectivity. To address these issues, an assessment rubric based on the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition was developed and implemented. This study sought to evaluate student, practice educator (PE), and faculty perceptions related to the rubric's effectiveness in assessing student performance within the direct patient care practicum setting.

Pharmacist trainees narrow scope of interprofessional collaboration and communication in hospital practice.

Early curricular exposure to interprofessional education (IPE) is intended to acclimatize health professional trainees to shared-care in the practice settings they will ultimately join. However, IPE activities typically reside outside actual organizational and social systems in which interprofessional care is delivered. We aimed to explore how pharmacist trainees experience collaborator and communicator competency roles during team-based workplace-based learning.

Status of simulation in health care education: an international survey.

Simulation is rapidly penetrating the terrain of health care education and has gained growing acceptance as an educational method and patient safety tool. Despite this, the state of simulation in health care education has not yet been evaluated on a global scale. In this project, we studied the global status of simulation in health care education by determining the degree of financial support, infrastructure, manpower, information technology capabilities, engagement of groups of learners, and research and scholarly activities, as well as the barriers, strengths, opportunities for growth, and other aspects of simulation in health care education.

Objective assessment of laparoscopic skills: dual-task approach.

Background: Assessment of surgical performance is often accomplished with traditional methods that often provide only subjective data. Trainees who perform well on a simulator in a controlled environment may not perform well in a real operating room environment with distractions. This project uses the ideas of dual-task methodology and applies them to the assessment of performance of laparoscopic surgical skills.

Comparing the use of global rating scale with checklists for the assessment of central venous catheterization skills using simulation.

The use of checklists is recommended for the assessment of competency in central venous catheterization (CVC) insertion. To explore the use of a global rating scale in the assessment of CVC skills, this study seeks to compare its use with two checklists, within the context of a formative examination using simulation. Video-recorded performances of CVC insertion by 34 first-year medical residents were reviewed by two independent, trained evaluators.

Reliability and acceptance of the mini-clinical evaluation exercise as a performance assessment of practicing physicians.

Background: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the reliability and acceptance of the mini-Clinical Evaluation Exercise (mini-CEX) as an assessment of practicing primary care physicians.

Method: Six raters were recruited to conduct the assessments. After a training session, their ability to discriminate between levels of performance was evaluated using videotaped clinical scenarios.

Otolaryngology training during paediatric residency: A survey of paediatricians in Canada.

Introduction: There is a significant overlap between paediatrics and otolaryngology relating to clinical practice of the two specialties. A lack of cross-training has been identified in previous studies, but the specifics have not been established. The present study was directed at paediatricians in Canada, and examined the need for mandatory otolaryngology training during paediatric residency.

The mini clinical evaluation exercise (mini-CEX) for assessing clinical performance of international medical graduates.

Objective: To evaluate the feasibility, reliability and acceptability of the mini clinical evaluation exercise (mini-CEX) for performance assessment among international medical graduates (IMGs).

Design, Setting And Participants: Observational study of 209 patient encounters involving 28 IMGs and 35 examiners at three metropolitan teaching hospitals in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland, September-December 2006.

Main Outcome Measures: The reliability of the mini-CEX was estimated using generalisability (G) analysis, and its acceptability was evaluated by a written survey of the examiners and IMGs.

Embedding medical student computer tutorials into a busy emergency department.

Objectives: To explore medical students' use of computer tutorials embedded in a busy clinical setting; to demonstrate that such tutorials can increase knowledge gain over and above that attributable to the clinical rotation itself.

Methods: Six tutorials were installed on a computer placed in a central area in an emergency department. Each tutorial was made up of between 33 and 85 screens of information that include text, graphics, animations, and questions.

Workplace injury management: using new technology to deliver and evaluate physician continuing medical education.

Objective: Physicians typically receive little continuing medical education (CME) about their role in workplace injury management as well as on workplace injuries and disease. Although new technologies may help educate physicians in these areas, careful evaluation is required, given the understudied nature of these interventions. The objective of this study is to evaluate two promising new technologies to deliver CME (online learning and videoconferencing) and to compare the effectiveness of these delivery methods to traditional CME interventions (large urban traditional conference lectures and small group local face-to-face outreach) in their impact on physician knowledge related to workplace injury management.

Assessing cognitive & motor performance in minimally invasive surgery (MIS) for training & tool design.

The objective of this paper is to present the development of a new modelling diagram (MCMD) to represent MIS procedures in terms of both motor and cognitive actions. Through observation and analysis of several laparoscopic cholecystectomy procedures and based on task analysis techniques, we created a diagram language composed of six primary symbols: processes, decisions, interrupt service routines (ISRs), options points and AND and OR gates. We then tested and refined them during 10 new cases until no further changes seemed necessary, we have since applied this approach to 6 laparoscopic colorectal surgeries and have found that no further symbols were necessary though the procedural representation was naturally different.

Medical student selection: choice of a semi-structured panel interview or an unstructured one-on-one interview.

Reliability has been shown to be higher in structured medical admissions interviews as compared to unstructured interviews. This study reports the comparison of a proposed semi-structured panel interview with a current individual unstructured medical admissions interview. Inter-rater reliability coefficients were calculated, and correlations were estimated between panel, individual and academic scores.

Randomized trial of problem-based versus didactic seminars for disseminating evidence-based guidelines on asthma management to primary care physicians.

Introduction: This randomized controlled trial (RCT) investigated the effectiveness of and satisfaction with small-group problem-based learning (PBL) versus a didactic lecture approach to guideline dissemination in asthma management controlling for confounders common in comparative educational interventions.

Methods: Sites were selected as either lecture or PBL using simple randomization. All participants were exposed to similar educational resources to ensure treatment equivalency.

Differences in cardiovascular risks in the aboriginal and non-aboriginal people living in Bella Coola, British Columbia.

Background: There is a lack of information regarding cardiovascular disease (CVD) in rural areas in British Columbia, Canada. To establish the relative prevalence of CVD risk factors in a rural area weanalyzed biochemical and clinical data collected on aboriginal and non-aboriginal descent people living in the community of Bella Coola.

Material/methods: A retrospective review of the 2378 charts located in the Bella Coola Medical Clinic was done in the Fall of 2002.