A Multi-institutional Study of the Feasibility and Reliability of the Implementation of Constructed Response Exam Questions.

Problem: Some medical schools have incorporated constructed response short answer questions (CR-SAQs) into their assessment toolkits. Although CR-SAQs carry benefits for medical students and educators, the faculty perception that the amount of time required to create and score CR-SAQs is not feasible and concerns about reliable scoring may impede the use of this assessment type in medical education.

Intervention: Three US medical schools collaborated to write and score CR-SAQs based on a single vignette.

A Novel USMLE Step 1 Projection Model Using a Single Comprehensive Basic Science Self-Assessment Taken During a Brief Intense Study Period.

Background: Comprehensive Basic Science Self-Assessments (CBSSAs) offered by the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) are used by students to gauge preparedness for the United States Medical Licensing (USMLE) Step 1. Because residency programs value Step 1 scores, students expend many resources attempting to score highly on this exam. We sought to generate a predicted Step 1 score from a single CBSSA taken several days out from a planned exam date to inform student testing and study plans.

Youth Enjoy Science Program at the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center: Increasing Engagement and Opportunity for Underrepresented Minority Students.

The Youth Enjoy Science (YES) Program at the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center is a National Cancer Institute (NCI) R25-funded training grant, designed to increase the pipeline of underrepresented minority (URM) students entering college and pursuing biomedical research and health care careers in the Cleveland Metropolitan and surrounding school districts. The three components of the program include: , engaging middle school students and their families; , designed for high school students and college undergraduates; and , focused on enhancing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teaching capacity among high school teachers. This study focuses on , which, in 2018 enrolled 36 URM students as paid summer scholars.

Twelve tips for assessing medical knowledge with open-ended questions: Designing constructed response examinations in medical education.

Medical knowledge examinations employing open-ended (constructed response) items can be useful to assess medical students' factual and conceptual understanding. Modern day curricula that emphasize active learning in small groups and other interactive formats lend themselves to an assessment format that prompts students to share conceptual understanding, explain, and elaborate. The open-ended question examination format can provide faculty with insights into learners' abilities to apply information to clinical or scientific problems, and reveal learners' misunderstandings about essential content.

Educating for the 21st-Century Health Care System: An Interdependent Framework of Basic, Clinical, and Systems Sciences.

In the face of a fragmented and poorly performing health care delivery system, medical education in the United States is poised for disruption. Despite broad-based recommendations to better align physician training with societal needs, adaptive change has been slow. Traditionally, medical education has focused on the basic and clinical sciences, largely removed from the newer systems sciences such as population health, policy, financing, health care delivery, and teamwork.

Interprofessional Communication Patterns During Patient Discharges: A Social Network Analysis.

Background: Optimal care delivery requires timely, efficient, and accurate communication among numerous providers and their patients, especially during hospital discharge. Little is known about communication patterns during this process.

Objective: Our aim was to assess the frequency and patterns of communication between patients and providers during patient discharges from a hospital-based medicine unit.

Milestones of critical thinking: a developmental model for medicine and nursing.

Critical thinking is essential to a health professional's competence to assess, diagnose, and care for patients. Defined as the ability to apply higher-order cognitive skills (conceptualization, analysis, evaluation) and the disposition to be deliberate about thinking (being open-minded or intellectually honest) that lead to action that is logical and appropriate, critical thinking represents a "meta-competency" that transcends other knowledge, skills, abilities, and behaviors required in health care professions. Despite its importance, the developmental stages of critical thinking have not been delineated for nurses and physicians.

Sleepiness in elderly veterans.

Purpose: This observational study seeks to describe the distribution of sleepiness among elderly male veterans and to explain the relationship between sleepiness and age, function, mobility, and depression in this population.

Methods: Veterans who were age 60 or older and had two or more functional limitations based on their activities of daily living or instrumental activities of daily living were recruited in outpatient clinics. They were recruited as part of a longitudinal study and completed questionnaires reported here at the 18-month data collection time point.

The internal medicine clerkship and ambulatory learning experiences: results of the 2010 clerkship directors in internal medicine survey.

Background: Education in the ambulatory setting should be an integral part of undergraduate medical education. However, previous studies have shown education in this setting has been lacking in medical school. Ambulatory education occurs on some internal medicine clerkships.

Grade inflation in the internal medicine clerkship: a national survey.

Background: Grade inflation is a growing concern, but the degree to which it continues to exist in 3rd-year internal medicine (IM) clerkships is unknown.

Purpose: The authors sought to determine the degree to which grade inflation is perceived to exist in IM clerkships in North American medical schools.

Methods: A national survey of all Clerkship Directors in Internal Medicine members was administered in 2009.

The required written history and physical is alive, but not entirely well, in internal medicine clerkships.

Background: Effective written communication is a core competency for medical students, but it is unclear whether or how this skill is evaluated in clinical clerkships.

Purpose: This study identifies current requirements and practices regarding required written work during internal medicine clerkships.

Methods: In 2010, Clerkship Directors of Internal Medicine (CDIM) surveyed its institutional members; one section asked questions about students' written work.

Hospital medicine in the internal medicine clerkship: results from a national survey.

Background: Hospital medicine is growing rapidly. This changing inpatient work force has had consequences on medical education, with an increasing hospitalist presence in resident and student training. Initially met with apprehension, there is growing literature to suggest that hospitalists are perceived to be more effective clinical teachers than non-hospitalists.

Student uncertainties drive teaching during case presentations: more so with SNAPPS.

Purpose: To compare the nature of uncertainties expressed by medical students using the six-step SNAPPS technique for case presentations (Summarize history and findings; N>arrow the differential; Analyze the differential; Probe preceptors about uncertainties; Plan management; Select case-related issues for self-study) versus those expressed by students doing customary presentations and to elucidate how preceptors respond.

Method: The authors performed a secondary analysis in 2009 of data from a 2004-2005 randomized study, comparing SNAPPS users' case presentations with other students' presentations. Authors coded transcriptions of audiotaped presentations to family medicine preceptors for type of student uncertainties, nature of preceptor responses, alignment of preceptor responses with uncertainty types, and expansion of preceptors' responses beyond addressing uncertainties.

How and why internal medicine clerkship directors use locally developed, faculty-written examinations: results of a national survey.

Purpose: To describe how and why internal medicine clerkship directors (CDs) use locally developed, faculty-written (LFW) examinations.

Method: In 2009, the Clerkship Directors in Internal Medicine conducted an annual, online, confidential survey of its 107 U.S.

Reflective writing in the internal medicine clerkship: a national survey of clerkship directors in internal medicine.

Background And Purpose: Reflective writing programs have been implemented at many medical schools, but it is unclear to what extent and how they are structured.

Methods: We surveyed the 107 Clerkship Directors of Internal Medicine member institutions on use of reflective writing assignments during the internal medicine clerkship.

Results: Eighty-six of 107 (80%) institutional members completed the survey.

Analysis and publication rates of Clerkship Directors in Internal Medicine (CDIM) annual meeting abstracts 1995-2005.

Background: Abstracts presented at meetings may be a reflection of the meeting's quality.

Summary: The goal is to determine purpose, content areas, research design, and subsequent publication rates of abstracts presented at Clerkship Directors in Internal Medicine's annual meetings. Abstracts presented in 1995-2005 were analyzed.

Simulation in the internal medicine clerkship: a national survey of internal medicine clerkship directors.

Background: Simulation in medical education offers the promise of safely and effectively preparing trainees for a variety of tasks encountered in clinical medicine.

Purpose: The objective was to determine internal medicine (IM) clerkship directors' perceptions of the use of simulations during the medicine clerkship.

Methods: A cross-sectional survey of 110 Clerkship Directors in Internal Medicine (CDIM) institutional members was presented.

Interprofessional education in the internal medicine clerkship: results from a national survey.

Purpose: Growing data support interprofessional teams as an important part of medical education. This study describes attitudes, barriers, and practices regarding interprofessional education (IPE) in internal medicine (IM) clerkships in the United States and Canada.

Method: In 2009, a section on IPE was included on the Clerkship Directors in Internal Medicine annual survey.

What are the discussion topics and usefulness of clerkship directors' meetings within medical schools? A report from the CDIM 2007 national survey.

Purpose: To characterize meetings among clerkship directors within medical schools, specifically with regard to topics of discussion, and usefulness of the meetings.

Method: In 2007, the Clerkship Directors in Internal Medicine surveyed its institutional members from 114 U.S.