Enhancing Examination Success: the Cumulative Benefits of Self-Assessment Questions and Virtual Patient Cases.

Purpose: Research on the learning benefits of the feedback-rich formative assessment environment of virtual patient cases (VPCs) has largely been limited to single institutions and focused on discrete clinical skills or topical knowledge. To augment current understanding, we designed a multi-institutional study to explore the distinct and cumulative effects of VPC formative assessments and optional self-assessment questions (SAQs) on exam performance.

Method: In this correlational study, we examined the records of 1,692 students on their family medicine (FM) clerkship at 20 medical schools during the 2014-2015 academic year.

Teaching Medical Students to Help Patients Manage Their Weight: Outcomes of an Eight-School Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: Given the rising rates of obesity there is a pressing need for medical schools to better prepare students for intervening with patients who have overweight or obesity and for prevention efforts.

Objective: To assess the effect of a multi-modal weight management curriculum on counseling skills for health behavior change.

Design: A pair-matched, group-randomized controlled trial (2015-2020) included students enrolled in eight U.

Selected Abstracts From the Proceedings of the 2017 Society of Teachers of Family Medicine Conference on Medical Student Education.

The Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM) is an organization made up of educators devoted to teaching family medicine to learners of all levels. This multidisciplinary group of physicians, behavioral scientists, researchers, and educators from other health professions works to further STFM's mission of improving the health of all people through education, research, patient care, and advocacy. STFM held its 43rd Conference on Medical Student Education in Anaheim, California from February 9 to 12, 2017.

Selected Abstracts From the Proceedings of the 2015 Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM) Conference on Medical Student Education.

The Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM; http://www.stfm.org) is a community of professionals devoted to teaching family medicine through undergraduate, graduate, and continuing medical education.

Design and rationale of the medical students learning weight management counseling skills (MSWeight) group randomized controlled trial.

Physicians have an important role addressing the obesity epidemic. Lack of adequate teaching to provide weight management counseling (WMC) is cited as a reason for limited treatment. National guidelines have not been translated into an evidence-supported, competency-based curriculum in medical schools.

Scope of Practice and Family Medicine Match Rates: Results From a CERA Clerkship Directors' Survey.

Background And Objectives: Family medicine clerkship directors depend on community preceptors to teach and attract medical students to family medicine. Many community preceptors do not provide the full range of family medicine services, and some are not family physicians. This study aimed to determine the types of practices in which family medicine clerkship students train and whether scope of practice is associated with family medicine Match rates.

The Community Preceptor Crisis: Recruiting and Retaining Community-Based Faculty to Teach Medical Students-A Shared Perspective From the Alliance for Clinical Education.

Issue: Community-based instruction is invaluable to medical students, as it provides "real-world" opportunities for observing and following patients over time while refining history taking, physical examination, differential diagnosis, and patient management skills. Community-based ambulatory settings can be more conducive to practicing these skills than highly specialized, academically based practice sites. The Association of American Medical Colleges and other national medical education organizations have expressed concern about recruitment and retention of preceptors to provide high-quality educational experiences in community-based practice sites.

Contemporary teaching strategies of exemplary community preceptors--is technology helping?

Background And Objectives: Many schools rely upon community preceptors for office-based education of medical students. These preceptors struggle to balance clinical care with the learning needs of students. We aim to gain a deeper understanding of the teaching rewards and challenges of current community preceptors.

Undergraduate students' perspectives on primary care.

Background And Objectives: Despite the need for more primary care physicians, the number of medical students choosing primary care careers remains lower than other specialties. While undergraduate premedical education is an essential component in the development of future physicians, little is known about undergraduate students' perspectives on becoming primary care physicians. To better understand the early factors in career selection, we asked premed and former premed students their perceptions of primary care.

Comparison of textbook to fmCases on family medicine clerkship exam performance.

Background And Objectives: The use of online learning with virtual cases has become commonplace in medical education. A series of fmCASES has been developed to assist with learning for clerkship students in family medicine. It has not been shown whether this series of cases improves student learning during their clerkship compared to traditional learning modalities.

Do we pay our community preceptors? Results from a CERA clerkship directors' survey.

Background And Objectives: Family medicine clerkships depend heavily on community-based family physician preceptors to teach medical students. These preceptors have traditionally been unpaid, but in recent years some clerkships have started to pay preceptors. This study determines trends in the number and geographic region of programs that pay their community preceptors, identifies reasons programs pay or do not pay, and investigates perceived advantages and disadvantages of payment.

Geriatric palliative care: do medical students' narrative reflections after a hospice clinical experience link to geriatric competencies?

Since the Association of American Medical Colleges geriatric competencies were released, educators are striving to incorporate them into medical student curricula. The purpose of this study is to examine medical students' reflections after an interdisciplinary, hospice staff-precepted clinical experience, and whether these reflections relate to the geriatric competencies which focus on palliative care. From July 2010 to June 2011, 155 2nd- and 3rd-year medical students participated in a required, half-day hospice experience, with 120 (77%) submitting narrative reflections for analysis.

Medical student documentation in electronic health records: a collaborative statement from the Alliance for Clinical Education.

Purpose: The electronic health record (EHR) is an important advancement in health care. It facilitates improvement of health care delivery and coordination of care, but it creates special challenges for student education. This article represents a collaborative effort of the Alliance for Clinical Education (ACE), a multidisciplinary group formed in 1992.

Opportunities and challenges in integrating electronic health records into undergraduate medical education: a national survey of clerkship directors.

Background: Few studies have reported on the utilization and the effect of electronic health records on the education of medical students.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to describe the current use of electronic health records by medical students in the United States and explore the opportunities and challenges of integrating electronic health records into daily teaching of medical students.

Methods: A survey with 24 questions regarding the use of electronic health records by medical students was developed by the Alliance for Clinical Educators and sent to clerkship directors across the United States.

Core clerkship directors: their current resources and the rewards of the role.

Purpose: To conduct a national multidisciplinary investigation assessing core clinical clerkships and their directors, variances in resources from national guidelines, and the impact of the clerkship director role on faculty members' academic productivity, advancement, and satisfaction.

Method: A multidisciplinary working group of the Alliance for Clinical Education (ACE), representing all seven core clinical disciplines, created and distributed a survey to clerkship directors at 125 U.S.