Fostering trust, collaboration, and a culture of continuous quality improvement: A call for transparency in medical school accreditation.

Medical schools provide the foundation for a physician's growth and lifelong learning. They also require a large share of government resources. As such, they should seek opportunities to maintain trust from the public, their students, faculty, universities, regulatory colleges, and each other.

Smoothing the Transition Points in Canadian Medical Education.

In 2010, the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada, Collège des médecins du Québec, College of Family Physicians of Canada, and Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada launched the Future of Medical Education in Canada Postgraduate (FMEC PG) Project to examine postgraduate medical education (PGME) in Canada and make recommendations for improvement. One recommendation that emerged concerns the transitions learners experience across the undergraduate medical education-PGME-practice continuum. The FMEC PG, using a thorough process, developed projects to address these often-tumultuous transitions for the learner, aiming to provide support, tools, and standards for the learner's educational journey.

Toward Defining the Foundation of the MD Degree: Core Entrustable Professional Activities for Entering Residency.

Currently, no standard defines the clinical skills that medical students must demonstrate upon graduation. The Liaison Committee on Medical Education bases its standards on required subject matter and student experiences rather than on observable educational outcomes. The absence of such established outcomes for MD graduates contributes to the gap between program directors' expectations and new residents' performance.

Affordances of knowledge translation in medical education: a qualitative exploration of empirical knowledge use among medical educators.

Purpose: Little is known about knowledge translation processes within medical education. Specifically, there is scant research on how and whether faculty incorporate empirical medical education knowledge into their educational practices. The authors use the conceptual framework of affordances to examine factors within the medical education practice environment that influence faculty utilization of empirical knowledge.

Study protocol for a pilot study to explore the determinants of knowledge use in a medical education context.

Rationale, Aims And Objectives: While the science of knowledge translation (KT) has been growing steadily for the past decade in relation to understanding processes and actions which are embedded within clinical practice settings, little is known about how empirical knowledge is used within the medical education system. Despite an increase of research in this domain, we know very little about the contribution of this evidence in the development of medical students into effective physicians. This pilot study aims to: provide a synthesis of the evidence for educational strategies within medical education; explore the perceptions and experiences of faculty in undergraduate (UG) medical education in relation to their use of evidence in their educational practices; and illuminate how medical education evidence is formally integrated into a UG medical curriculum.

Integration of community health teaching in the undergraduate medicine curriculum at the University of Toronto.

Background: In 1999, Determinants of Community Health was introduced at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto. The course spanned all 4 years of the undergraduate curriculum and focused on addressing individual patient and community needs, prevention and population health, and diverse learning contexts.

Purpose: To demonstrate the value of an integrated, longitudinal approach to the efficiency of delivering a public health curriculum.

In the spirit of Flexner: working toward a collective vision for the future of medical education in Canada.

The Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada launched the Future of Medical Education in Canada (FMEC) Project in 2007. The FMEC Project's overarching goal was to comprehensively examine the current state of undergraduate medical education, concentrating on its alignment with current and future societal needs. Like Flexner's work, the FMEC Project used a process of reflection and renewal; unlike Flexner's work, the FMEC Project used multiple techniques to gather information, including literature reviews, key informant interviews, international visits, and a series of consultations with stakeholders and expert groups.

Measuring educational workload: a pilot study of paper-based and PDA tools.

Background: Teaching is an important professional role for most faculty members in academic health sciences centres. Careful delineation of educational workload is needed to foster and reward teaching efforts, and to facilitate equitable allocation of resources.

Aims: To promote recognition in teaching and facilitate equitable resource allocation, we developed, piloted, and qualitatively assessed a tool for delineating the educational workload of pediatric faculty in an academic health sciences centre.

What factors are associated with poor developmental attainment in young Canadian children?

Background: This study was undertaken to determine the association between poor developmental attainment (PDA) and biological, home environment and socio-demographic factors in a population-based sample of Canadian children.

Methods: Cross-sectional data from two cycles (1994/95 and 1996/97) of the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth were used. Children aged 1-5 years were included.

Risk markers for poor developmental attainment in young children: results from a longitudinal national survey.

Objective: To evaluate social and environmental determinants of poor developmental attainment among preschool children by means of longitudinal data from a population-based sample of Canadian children.

Design: Secondary analysis of data from cycles 1 (1994-1995) and 2 (1996-1997) of the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth using a cohort design with 2-year follow-up.

Participants: A total of 4987 children aged 1 to 5 years at baseline, whose biological mother completed risk factor information and who were included in both cycles.

Exploring the gap between knowledge and behavior: a qualitative study of clinician action following an educational intervention.

Purpose: Many medical education interventions improve clinicians' knowledge but fail to change behavior. The authors exposed this knowledge-behavior gap through standardized clinical interactions, thus allowing in-depth exploration of the contributing factors.

Method: A typical evidence-based educational intervention in one clinical domain (early signs of autism) was administered to family medicine residents at the University of Toronto in 2001-02, and change in knowledge was assessed through a multiple-choice test.