A needs assessment for simulation-based training of emergency medical providers in Nebraska, USA.

Background: Training emergency medical services (EMS) workforce is challenging in rural and remote settings. Moreover, critical access hospitals (CAHs) struggle to ensure continuing medical education for their emergency department (ED) staff. This project collected information from EMS and ED providers across Nebraska to identify gaps in their skills, knowledge, and abilities and thus inform curriculum development for the mobile simulation-based training program.

Student-Perceived Influences on Performance During Simulation.

Background: Understanding the effect of the context of simulation to learning and performance is critical to ensure not only optimal learning but to provide a valid and reliable means to evaluate performance. The purpose of this study is to identify influences on performance from the student perspective and understand the contextual barriers inherent in simulation before using simulation for high-stakes testing.

Method: This study used a qualitative descriptive design.

Influence of a rural family medicine rotation on residency selection: MS3 versus MS4.

Background And Objectives: Many family medicine educators feel that a required clinical rotation in family medicine has a positive influence on medical students' selection of family medicine residencies. We investigated the effect of a rural family medicine rotation on students' residency choices and examined the differences between a third-year and a fourth-year rotation.

Methods: We surveyed 1,260 students before and after they participated in a required rural family medicine rotation.

From professional silos to interprofessional education: campuswide focus on quality of care.

Objectives: The Institute of Medicine called for the integration of interprofessional education (IPE) into health professions curricula, in order to improve health care quality. In response, we developed, implemented, and evaluated a campus wide IPE program, shifting from traditional educational silos to greater collaboration.

Methods: Students (155) and faculty (30) from 6 academic programs (nursing, medicine, public health, allied health, dentistry, and pharmacy) engaged with a university hospital partner to deliver this program.

Reaching and teaching preceptors: limited success from a multifaceted faculty development program.

We conducted a six-pronged preceptor faculty development program that included a listserve and interactive Web-based teaching scenarios. A total of 144 preceptors in a required preceptorship program were offered traditional continuing medical education (CME), a preceptor listserve, an electronic clinical teaching discussion group, an orientation videotape, a CD-ROM on teaching skills, and technology support. On Web-based evaluation, 31% of participants responded.

Preceptorship rurality does not affect medical students' shelf exam scores.

Objective: This study's objective was to determine whether junior medical students' end-of-rotation shelf exam scores varied by the preceptorship county's rurality.

Methods: Student learning during rural preceptorship experiences, 1999 to 2005, was assessed using the students' scores on the National Board of Medical Examiners family medicine subject examination. Rurality was measured using both population density and the rural-urban continuum (RUC) codes.

Family Medicine Curriculum Resource Project: the future.

Under contract to the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM) created an undergraduate medical education curricular resource designed to train physicians to practice in the 21st century. An interdisciplinary group of more than 35 educators worked for 4 years to create the Family Medicine Curriculum Resource (FMCR). By consensus, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) competencies were adopted as the theoretical framework for this project.

A proposal to address the curriculum for the M-4 medical student.

The unstructured and elective nature of the fourth-year medical student (M4) medical school curriculum has been recognized by medical educators as an area of concern. Few accepted guidelines exist for the M4 curriculum, and students exercise significant discretion over their experience. The Family Medicine Curriculum Resource Project post-clerkship resource was developed by the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine under contract from the Health Resources and Service Agency to support medical educators in the development of curricula and assessment of student needs for the M4 year of medical school.

Family medicine curriculum resource project: overview.

In 2000, the Health Resources and Services Administration, in the interest of fostering curriculum reform in medical schools, awarded a 4-year contract to the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine to develop a curricular resource. The contract directed development of a multi-part resource aimed at (1) preclerkship prerequisites for third-year clerkships in collaboration with internal medicine and pediatrics, (2) the family medicine clerkship, (3) post-clerkship preparation for residency training, and (4) specific special topic areas of importance to the government. The Family Medicine Curriculum Resource (FMCR) was produced by primary care educators, with day-to-day direction from an executive committee and overall oversight by an advisory committee.

The characteristics of successful family physicians in rural Nebraska: a qualitative study of physician interviews.

Context: In studying physician shortage issues, few studies have utilized individual interviews, allowing rural physicians to voice their own stories.

Purpose: To explore rural physicians' unique characteristics affecting their decisions and satisfactions with practice in a rural area.

Methods: A qualitative interview study with 11 Nebraska family physicians practicing in rural (frontier) areas.

The effect of preceptorship rurality on students' self-perceived clinical competency.

Objective: This study's objective was to determine whether students' learning experiences, as measured by the improvement in students' perceived competence in several clinical areas, varied by the preceptorship county's rurality.

Methods: Rural preceptorship experiences from 1990 to 2003 were assessed using pre- and post-preceptorship questionnaires regarding students' perceived levels of competence. Questionnaires addressed basic clinical skills, common diagnoses, and advanced clinical skills.

From library to discharge: a managing care student project.

Background And Objectives: The Patient Care Project (PCP) was a central component of the Undergraduate Medical Education for the 21st Century (UME-21) grant project at the University of Nebraska. With the primary goal of improving students' critical thinking skills, the PCP was directed more toward an understanding of managing care than the business aspects of managed care and emphasized written communication skills, clinical hypothesis testing, and exploring ways to solve medical and ethical questions.

Methods: All 239 students graduating in 2000 and 2001 were required to analyze the medical care received by one of their hospitalized patients.

Evidence-based and population-based medicine: national implementation under the UME-21 project.

Background And Objectives: The Undergraduate Medical Education for the 21st Century (UME-21) project developed and implemented innovations to medical school curricula at medical schools across the country. This report describes the development and implementation of innovative approaches to improving instruction in evidence-based medicine with a population-based perspective.

Methods: Each school participating in the UME-21 project designed, implemented, and evaluated its own unique curriculum initiatives.

Do clerkship directors think medical students are prepared for the clerkship years?

Purpose: Educators have begun to question whether medical students are adequately prepared for the core clerkships. Inadequate preclerkship preparation may hinder learning and may be predictive of future achievement. This study assessed and compared the views of clerkship directors regarding student preparation for the core clinical clerkships in six key competencies.

Teaching the quality improvement process to junior medical students: the Nebraska experience.

To teach the continuous quality improvement (CQI) process to junior medical students at the University of Nebraska during their rural family medicine preceptorship, we designed and implemented a population health project in 1998. This project requires students to select a problem affecting a population in their preceptor's practice, analyze that problem, and suggest a solution or remediation using CQI principles. Support for the students during their project includes Web-based examples and readings.

The Interdisciplinary Generalist Project at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

The Interdisciplinary Generalist Curriculum (IGC) Project at the University of Nebraska College of Medicine (Nebraska) had three goals: (1) to increase first- and second-year students' exposure to primary care practice in the community; (2) to develop specific educational programs introducing these students to the principles and practices of primary care medicine; and (3) to establish a generalist coordinating council to provide leadership and to nurture generalist educational initiatives in the College of MEDICINE: Students at Nebraska were already required to spend three half-days a semester in a longitudinal clinical experience (LCE) and to complete a three-week primary care block experience in the summer between the first and second years. IGC Project funds were used increase the number of required LCE visits to five a semester and to develop curricular enhancements that would maximize the educational potential of community-based clinical experiences for first- and second-year students. Curricular elements developed included a focus on faculty development for preceptors and development of the Primary Care Introduction to Medicine Curriculum, an eight-week, interdisciplinary module scheduled late in the first year to help prepare students for intensive summer rotations.

The effect of a rural family practice preceptorship on medical students' residency selection.

Objective: We suspected our senior medical student rural family practice preceptorship was a positive influence on students' selection of family practice as a specialty.

Methods: A five-year study of 598 students' specialty choices before and after their preceptorship was done and compared to eventual residency choice.

Results: Of these students, 565 (94.

RJR Nabisco's cartoon camel promotes camel cigarettes to children.

Objectives: To determine if RJR Nabisco's cartoon-theme advertising is more effective in promoting Camel cigarettes to children or to adults. To determine if children see, remember, and are influenced by cigarette advertising.

Design: Use of four standard marketing measures to compare the effects of Camel's Old Joe cartoon advertising on children and adults.