Patient Safety and Quality of Care are Everybody's Business: Evaluating the Impact of a Continuing Professional Development Program beyond Satisfaction.

This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. Background Research integrating Continuing Professional Development (CPD) with patient safety (PS) and quality improvement (QI) is still in its infancy despite advocacy by leaders in the field.

Community Preceptors' Motivations and Views about Their Relationships with Medical Students During a Longitudinal Family Medicine Experience: A Qualitative Case Study.

Phenomenon: Although current evidence emphasizes various benefits of community-oriented programs, little is still known about the nature of the relationships that students and family physicians develop in this educational setting. Our aim in this study was twofold: to identify family physicians' motivations to enroll as preceptors in a longitudinal undergraduate family medicine program and to explore the nature of the student-preceptor relationships built during the course. Approach: This was a qualitative exploratory case study.

Comparing Medical Students' and Preceptors' Views of a Longitudinal Preclerkship Family Medicine Course.

Introduction: Despite the increasing popularity of longitudinal primary care experiences in North America and beyond, there is a paucity of work assessing these medical undergraduate experiences using reliable and valid questionnaires. Our objective in this study was to evaluate a new preclerkship longitudinal family medicine experience (LFME) course at McGill University by assessing family physician preceptors' self-reported ratings of the perceived effects of this course, and to compare their responses with ratings provided by medical students who completed the course.

Methods: This study is part of a larger evaluative research project assessing the first edition of the LFME.

The Steinberg Centre for Simulation and Interactive Learning at McGill University.

Simulation allows for learner-centered health professions training by providing a safe environment to practice and make mistakes without jeopardizing patient care. It was with this goal in mind that the McGill Medical Simulation Center was officially opened on September 14, 2006, as a partnership between McGill University, the Faculty of Medicine and its affiliated hospitals. Its mandate is to provide state-of-the-art facilities to support simulation-based medical and allied health education initiatives.

Assessing students' perceptions of the effects of a new Canadian longitudinal pre-clerkship family medicine experience.

Background: Despite the implementation of longitudinal community-based pre-clerkship courses in several Canadian medical schools, there is a paucity of data assessing students' views regarding their experiences. The present study sought to measure students' perceived effects of the new Longitudinal Family Medicine Experience (LFME) course at McGill University.

Methods: A 34-item questionnaire called the 'LFME Survey (Student Version)' was created, and all first-year medical students completed it online.

Assessing a faculty development workshop in narrative medicine.

Background: Narrative medicine is increasingly popular in undergraduate medical curricula. Moreover, although faculty are expected to use narrative approaches in teaching, few faculty development learning activities have been described. In addition, data on the impact of faculty development initiatives designed to teach narrative are limited, and there is a paucity of tools to assess their impact.

Twelve tips for using the objective structured teaching exercise for faculty development.

Background: The importance of faculty development to improve clinicians' teaching skills has been well articulated in the literature. There are few objective measures of the impact of faculty development on teaching skills. The objective structured teaching exercise (OSTE) is a faculty development tool that may meet this challenge.

Faculty development: if you build it, they will come.

Objectives: The goals of this study were three-fold: to explore the reasons why some clinical teachers regularly attend centralised faculty development activities; to compare their responses with those of colleagues who do not attend, and to learn how we can make faculty development programmes more pertinent to teachers' needs.

Methods: In 2008-2009, we conducted focus groups with 23 clinical teachers who had participated in faculty development activities on a regular basis in order to ascertain their perceptions of faculty development, reasons for participation, and perceived barriers against involvement. Thematic analysis and research team consensus guided the data interpretation.

The Osler Fellowship: an apprenticeship for medical educators.

Purpose: As part of a renewed focus on the physician as healer and professional at McGill University, faculty members were recruited to teach in a four-year, longitudinal doctoring course called Physician Apprenticeship. The goal of this study was to examine the impact of this experience and the accompanying faculty development program on the teachers, known as Osler Fellows.

Method: An interviewer conducted semistructured interviews with 23 clinicians to understand their experiences as Osler Fellows and ascertain their views on how the workshop-based faculty development program, designed to mirror student experiences, differed from other professional development activities.

Faculty development: a 'field of dreams'?

Objectives: Participants in faculty development workshops often comment that 'those who need faculty development the most attend the least'. The goals of this study were to explore the reasons why some clinical teachers do not participate in centralised faculty development activities and to learn how we can make faculty development programmes more relevant to teachers' needs.

Methods: In 2006, we conducted focus groups with 16 clinical teachers, who had not participated in faculty development activities, to ascertain their perceptions of faculty development, reasons for non-participation and perceived barriers to involvement.

Developing successful workshops: a workshop for educators.

Background: Many educators have had little or no preparation in the design, delivery or evaluation of workshops.

Methods: This faculty development intervention consisted of a faculty development workshop on Developing Successful Workshops; a workbook to guide independent study; and peer consultations. Program evaluation included immediate and delayed post-workshop evaluations, tracking of site-specific activities, and assessment of self-perceived efficacy.

Effect of a PDA-assisted evidence-based medicine course on knowledge of common clinical problems.

Background And Objectives: It is not yet known if personal digital assistant (PDA)-assisted evidence-based medicine (EBM) courses in postgraduate training enhance knowledge of common clinical problems. This study's objective was to determine if PDA-assisted EBM training would improve clinical knowledge.

Methods: In a controlled trial, intervention group residents received InfoRetriever on a PDA coupled with an EBM course integrated within clinical rotations in family medicine.

Morbidity and mortality audits: "How to"for family practice.

Problem Being Addressed: While professions hold their members responsible for self-regulation, many physicians have insufficient information about outcome measures in their practices to judge performance and are inexperienced in performing audits to gather the information they need to judge performance.

Objective Of Program: To develop a structure and process to support family doctors with little experience in doing quality improvement studies to conduct morbidity and mortality (M&M) audits.

Program Description: A family medicine teaching group provides members on a rotating basis to an M&M review committee.