Question storming: The power of Questions-A method to increase options for action in uncertainty.

Rationale: Question Storming offers a method that enables one to hold the condition of uncertainty in reflection without the need for resolution. Global interdependencies and unprecedented access to information, social media and multiple forms of communications challenge our ability to see, understand and influence change effectively and efficiently. The tension and need to cope effectively with massive uncertainties cannot be resolved with current methods leading to a necessity for people to seek new ways to transform their understanding and explore new options for action.

Ten Global Challenges in Medical Education: Wicked Issues and Options for Action.

Medical education and the health professions are facing multiple global challenges that are context specific yet are patterned across contexts. These challenges have been described as wicked issues that defy known solutions and are viewed differently by different people. Three simple approaches, inquiry, pattern recognition, and Adaptive Action, are presented as a way forward to tame wicked issues and take informed action.

Wicked Problems in Health Professions Education: Adaptive Action in Action.

This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. Each educational institution is different.

Medical educators: How they define themselves - Results of an international web survey.

Background: Little is known about medical educators' self-definition.

Aims: The aim of this study is to survey an international community of medical educators focusing on the medical educators' self-definition.

Methods: Within a comprehensive, web-based survey, an open question on the participants' views of how they would define a "medical educator" was sent to 2200 persons on the mailing list of the Association for Medical Education in Europe.

Residents' and standardized patients' perspectives on empathy: issues of agreement.

Objective: We investigated correlations between residents' scores on the Jefferson Scale of Empathy (JSE), residents' perceptions of their empathy during standardized-patient encounters, and the perceptions of standardized patients.

Methods: Participants were 214 first-year residents in internal medicine or family medicine from 13 residency programs taking standardized patient-based clinical skills assessment in 2011. We analyzed correlations between residents' JSE scores; standardized patients' perspectives on residents' empathy during OSCE encounters, using the Jefferson Scale of Patient Perceptions of Physician Empathy; and residents' perspectives on their own empathy, using a modified version of this scale.

An educational international partnership responding to local needs: process evaluation of the Brazil FAIMER Regional Institute.

Introduction: The Brazilian public health system requires competent professionals sensitive to the needs of the population. The Foundation for Advancement of International Medical Education and Research (FAIMER) provides a two-year faculty development programme for health professions educators, aiming to build leadership in education to improve health. A partnership with governmental initiatives and FAIMER was established for meeting these needs.

Project-based faculty development by international health professions educators: practical strategies.

Background: Project design and implementation, applied to real life situations, is emerging as an educational strategy for application of health professions faculty development learning within a supportive environment.

Aim: We conducted a retrospective analysis of project evolution to identify common experiences, challenges, and successful strategies of 54 mid-career faculty members from 18 developing countries who attended the Foundation for the Advancement of International Medical Education and Research Institute between 2001 and 2006 and designed, conducted, and evaluated education innovations at their home institutions.

Methods: Chronological analysis of the evolution of 54 projects over the initial 16-18 months of the 2-year Fellowship was based on an iterative qualitative analysis of 324 reports and individual interview transcripts collected over 6 years.

Ethics education in research involving human beings in undergraduate medicine curriculum in Brazil.

Introduction: The Brazilian national curriculum guidelines for undergraduate medicine courses inspired and influenced the groundwork for knowledge acquisition, skills development and the perception of ethical values in the context of professional conduct.

Objective: The evaluation of ethics education in research involving human beings in undergraduate medicine curriculum in Brazil, both in courses with active learning processes and in those with traditional lecture learning methodologies.

Methods: Curricula and teaching projects of 175 Brazilian medical schools were analyzed using a retrospective historical and descriptive exploratory cohort study.

Research in assessment: consensus statement and recommendations from the Ottawa 2010 Conference.

Medical education research in general is a young scientific discipline which is still finding its own position in the scientific range. It is rooted in both the biomedical sciences and the social sciences, each with their own scientific language. A more unique feature of medical education (and assessment) research is that it has to be both locally and internationally relevant.

Expertise, needs and challenges of medical educators: Results of an international web survey.

Background: Little is known about how medical educators perceive their own expertise, needs and challenges in relation to medical education.

Aim: To survey an international community of medical educators with a focus on: (1) their expertise, (2) their need for training and (3) perceived challenges.

Methods: A web-based survey comprising closed and open free-text questions was sent to 2200 persons on the mailing list of the Association for Medical Education in Europe.

Complexity and health professions education: a basic glossary.

Rationale And Aims: The study of health professions education in the context of complexity science and complex adaptive systems involves different concepts and terminology that are likely to be unfamiliar to many health professions educators. A list of selected key terms and definitions from the literature of complexity science is provided to assist readers to navigate familiar territory from a different perspective.

Terms And Concepts: include agent, attractor, bifurcation, chaos, co-evolution, collective variable, complex adaptive systems, complexity science, deterministic systems, dynamical system, edge of chaos, emergence, equilibrium, far from equilibrium, fuzzy boundaries, linear system, non-linear system, random, self-organization and self-similarity.

Measuring the effects of an international health professions faculty development fellowship: the FAIMER Institute.

While there are many examples of evaluations of faculty development programs in resource rich countries, evaluation of transnational programs for faculty from developing countries is limited. We describe evaluation of the effects of the FAIMER Institute, an international health professions education fellowship that incorporates not only education content, but also leadership and management topics and, in addition, strives to develop a sustained community of educators. Data were obtained via retrospective pre/post surveys, as well as interviews.

Self-organisation, integration and curriculum in the complex world of medical education.

Context: The world of medical education is more complex than ever and there seems to be no end in sight. Complexity science is particularly relevant as medical education embraces a movement towards more authentic curricula focusing on integration, interactive small-group learning, and early and sustained clinical and community experiences.

Discussion: A medical school as a whole, and the expression of its curriculum through the interactions, exchanges and learning that take place within and outside of it, is a complex system.

Online faculty development for medical educators: experience of a South Asian program.

Context: India has the highest number of medical schools in the world. Teacher shortages and inadequate training of existing faculty are a major problem. On-line faculty development and learning is a plausible component of developing medical teachers in the essentials of pedagogy.

Effects of a supplementary final year curriculum on students' clinical reasoning skills as assessed by key-feature examination.

Background: The final year of medical education is considered crucial in making students 'fit for purpose'. Studies have shown that many students leave medical school without having experienced sufficient preparation for their upcoming professional life.

Aim: The aim of this study was to examine the effectiveness of a supplementary internal medicine final year curriculum on clinical reasoning skills.

Medical students learn over distance using virtual reality simulation.

Introduction: This article presents the results of a demonstration project that was designed with the goal to determine the feasibility and acceptability of medical students in using distance technology and virtual reality (VR) simulation within a problem-based learning (PBL).

Methods: This pilot project involved students from the Universities of New Mexico and Hawaii and compared (1) control groups consisting of medical students in a tutor-guided PBL session using a text-based case, (2) distance groups using the same text-based case but interacting over distance from multiple sites, (3) groups using a VR simulation scenario integrated into the case without interaction over distance, and (4) combination groups interacting over distance from multiple sites with integration of a VR simulation scenario.

Results: The study results suggest that it is possible to successfully conduct a PBL tutorial with medical students from two institutions with the integration VR and distributed distance interaction in combination or independently.

Successful accomplishment of educational goals with clinical experience at public primary care facilities.

Goal: To compare the spectrum of clinical encounters experienced by medical students at the primary level of care in six urban public health units, and to determine the extent to which these educational experiences were sufficient to meet learning objectives proposed for a teaching module.

Method: During the 4th year of a new six- year curriculum, 113 students cared for adults, the elderly, women and children. They were supervised by faculty and trained supervisors during three 4-hours periods a week, every other week, from January to October at six primary health units.