Publications by authors named "Kerfoot B"
Introduction: Constraints on surgical resident training (work-hour mandates, shorter training programs, etc.) and availability of expert surgical educators may limit the acquisition of prosthetic surgical skills. As a result, training courses are being conducted to augment the prosthetic surgery learning experience.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Rigorous evidence is lacking whether online games can improve patients' longer-term health outcomes. We investigated whether an online team-based game delivering diabetes self-management education (DSME) to patients via e-mail or mobile application (app) can generate longer-term improvements in hemoglobin A (HbA).
Research Design And Methods: Patients ( = 456) on oral diabetes medications with HbA ≥58 mmol/mol were randomly assigned between a DSME game (with a civics booklet) and a civics game (with a DSME booklet).
Objective: Several barriers challenge resident engagement in learning quality improvement (QI). We investigated whether the incorporation of team-based game mechanics into an evidence-based online learning platform could increase resident participation in a QI curriculum.
Design: Randomized, controlled trial.
Background: Digital games have been demonstrated to be beneficial for a range of non-recreational purposes, with a particular focus on their value for education. There is a limited amount of research supporting their use for medical education, but their are several studies on their use in areas such as surgical training, and life-support re-training. However, a significant gap exists in demonstrating how they engage with learners and games can be used most effectively in medical education.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Many patients with high blood pressure (BP) do not have antihypertensive medications appropriately intensified at clinician visits. We investigated whether an online spaced-education (SE) game among primary care clinicians can decrease time to BP target among their hypertensive patients.
Methods And Results: A 2-arm randomized trial was conducted over 52 weeks among primary care clinicians at 8 hospitals.
Purpose: To investigate whether a spaced-education (SE) game can be an effective means of teaching core content to medical students and a reliable and valid method of assessing their knowledge.
Method: This nine-month trial (2008-2009) enrolled students from three U.S.
Objective: To assess the efficacy of a "spaced-education" game as a method of continuing medical education (CME) among physicians across the globe.
Background: The efficacy of educational games for the CME has yet to be established. We created a novel online educational game by incorporating game mechanics into "spaced education" (SE), an evidence-based method of online CME.
Background: While games are frequently used in resident education, there is little evidence supporting their efficacy. We investigated whether a spaced-education (SE) game can be both a reliable and valid method of assessing residents' knowledge and an effective means of teaching core content.
Study Design: The SE game consisted of 100 validated multiple-choice questions and explanations on core urology content.
Purpose: The American Urological Association In-Service Examination and the American Board of Urology Qualifying Examination are written multiple choice tests that cover all domains in urology. We investigated whether In-Service Examination performance could identify chief residents who scored in the lowest quartile on the Qualifying Examination.
Materials And Methods: All urology chief residents in the United States and Canada in 2008 and 2009 were eligible to participate in this study.
Background: Spaced education (SE) is a novel, evidence-based form of online learning. We investigated whether an SE program following a face-to-face continuing medical education (CME) course could enhance the course's impact on providers' clinical behaviors.
Methods: This randomized controlled trial was conducted from March 2009 to April 2010, immediately following the Current Clinical Issues in Primary Care (Pri-Med) CME conference in Houston, Texas.
Purpose: U.S. medical students will soon complete only one licensure examination sequence, given near the end of medical school.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFContext: Prostate cancer screening with prostate-specific antigen (PSA) is frequently performed, counter to clinical practice guidelines.
Background: It was hypothesized that an e-mail-based intervention termed "spaced education" could reduce clinicians' inappropriate screening for prostate cancer.
Design: The study was conducted as an RCT.
Background: Retention of learning from surgical training is often limited, especially if the knowledge and skills are used infrequently. Using histopathology diagnostic skills as an experimental system, we compared knowledge transfer and retention between bolus Web-based teaching (WBT) modules and online spaced education, a novel email-based method of online education founded on the spacing effect.
Study Design: All US urology residents were eligible to participate.
Purpose: Spaced education is a novel form of online education that harnesses the 2 psychology research findings of spacing and testing effects. Spaced education is delivered by daily emails containing clinically relevant multiple choice questions. To take advantage of the spacing effect the questions are repeated at fixed intervals for a fixed number of repetitions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To determine whether Interactive Spaced Education (ISE) is an effective and acceptable form of graduate and continuing medical education (GME/CME), using clinical practice guideline (CPG) education as an experimental system.
Summary Background Data: ISE is a novel form of online education, which combines the pedagogical merits of the spacing and testing effects. Its efficacy for GME and CME is not known.
Purpose: A total of 537 urology residents participated in a randomized trial of on-line spaced education in 2005 that used 96 American Urological Association Self-Assessment Study Program questions as educational material. I investigated whether the learning gains generated by the spaced education program could be detected 2 years later.
Materials And Methods: A test instrument was constructed with 60 of the 96 Self-Assessment Study Program questions from the 2005 trial.
Background: Surgery residents teach medical students; feedback is one critical teaching skill. We investigated whether feedback given by surgery residents to students could be improved through an online spaced education program.
Methods: Surgery residents were randomized to receive either a weekly spaced education e-mail during a 9-month period containing teaching bullets on how to provide effective feedback, or no intervention.
Background: We investigated whether online spaced education could prospectively improve students' acquisition and retention of knowledge.
Methods: One hundred fifteen third-year medical students at 2 schools were randomized to receive weekly/biweekly spaced education e-mails on 2 of 4 urology topics: prostate cancer (PC) and prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening, or benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) and erectile dysfunction (ED). E-mails began in month 1 of their third year.
Background: Several studies have documented that physical examination knowledge and skills are limited among medical trainees.
Objectives: The objective of the study is to investigate the efficacy and acceptability of a novel online educational methodology termed 'interactive spaced-education' (ISE) as a method to teach the physical examination.
Design: The design of the study is randomized controlled trial.
Purpose: This study is an assessment of the acceptability and short-term educational efficacy of interactive spaced education compared to web based teaching cases within the compact time frame of a clinical clerkship.
Materials And Methods: All 237 third-year students completing their 3-month surgery clerkships at 2 medical schools were asked to complete a urology online-education program covering 4 core topics of benign prostatic hyperplasia, erectile dysfunction, prostate cancer and screening with prostate specific antigen. Students were stratified by clinical site and randomized to 1 of 2 cohorts.