Longitudinal Faculty Development Program to Promote Effective Observation and Feedback Skills in Direct Clinical Observation.

Introduction: We developed a longitudinal faculty development program to maximize faculty training in direct clinical observation (DCO) and feedback, as there was a perceived need for higher quality of DCO and feedback. To achieve this, we created a behaviorally anchored DCO instrument and worked to improve faculty skills in this area.

Methods: We describe an innovative model of faculty training that is learner centered and reinforces evidence-based principles of effective feedback that are introduced and then repeated in all sessions.

Near-peer role modeling: Can fourth-year medical students, recognized for their humanism, enhance reflection among second-year students in a physical diagnosis course?

Introduction: Humanism is cultivated through reflection and self-awareness. We aimed to employ fourth-year medical students, recognized for their humanism, to facilitate reflective sessions for second-year medical students with the intention of positively influencing reflective process toward humanistic development.

Methods/analysis: A total of 186 students were randomly assigned to one of three comparison arms: eight groups of eight students (64 students) were facilitated by a fourth-year student who was a Gold Humanism Honor Society member (GHHS); eight groups (64 students) by a volunteer non-GHHS student; and seven groups (58 students) were non-facilitated.

"How am I doing?" Teaching medical students to elicit feedback during their clerkships.

Aim: This study seeks to explore formative feedback during clerkships from the student perspective and to determine whether a modest intervention aimed at students can impact their attitudes or behavior regarding feedback interactions.

Background: Multiple studies document medical student dissatisfaction with a lack of feedback from attending physicians and housestaff regarding their performance during their clerkship rotations. While feedback is essential to skill building, and feedback-seeking a necessary component of self-awareness, studies indicate that little progress has been made in understanding or addressing these student concerns.

Curiosity and medical education.

Context: For doctors, curiosity is fundamental to understanding each patient's unique experience of illness, building respectful relationships with patients, deepening self-awareness, supporting clinical reasoning, avoiding premature closure and encouraging lifelong learning. Yet, curiosity has received limited attention in medical education and research, and studies from the fields of cognitive psychology and education suggest that common practices in medical education may inadvertently suppress curiosity.

Objectives: This study aimed to identify common barriers to and facilitators of curiosity and related habits of mind in the education of doctors.

Interpersonal skill in medicine: the essential partner of verbal communication.

Medical educators have promoted skillful communication as a means for doctors to develop positive relationships with their patients. In practice, communication tends to be defined primarily as what doctors say, with less attention to how, when, and to whom they say it. These latter elements of communication, which often carry the emotional content of the discourse, are usually referred to as interpersonal skills.

The effect of physician solicitation approaches on ability to identify patient concerns.

Context: Studies showing that physicians often interrupt the patient's opening statement assume that this compromises data collection.

Objective: To explore the association between such interruptions and physician accuracy in identifying patient concerns.

Design: This study replicates the Beckman-Frankel methodology and adds exit interviews to assess physician understanding.