Strategic Approaches for the Health Science Educator: Understanding Strategic Planning, Strategic Thinking, and Continuous Process Improvement and Their Impact.

With continued demand for health science institutions to find solutions to deliver on heightened student expectations despite smaller budgets and fewer resources, the utilization of organizational improvement techniques is pervasive. Academic health care leaders are seeking effective modalities to overcome obstacles, modernize, and become more efficient. Three of the commonly used approaches for improvement are strategic planning, strategic thinking, and continuous process improvement (CPI), and these concepts have been used in a variety of forms throughout industry, higher education, and health care.

Combining Expertise: Reflecting on a Team Approach to Curriculum Development and Implementation.

Introduction: This article discussed curriculum development and implementation using a unique collaboration of basic scientists and clinicians functioning as course co-directors. It explores the pros, cons, and unintended consequences of this integrated approach through reflections of the faculty involved.

Methods: Ten faculty participated in semi-structured phone interviews to reflect on their experiences.

Twelve tips for developing, implementing, and sustaining medical education fellowship programs: Building on new trends and solid foundations.

Medical education fellowship programs (MEFPs) are a form of faculty development contributing to an organization's educational mission and participants' career development. Building an MEFP requires a systematic design, implementation, and evaluation approach which aligns institutional and individual faculty goals. Implementing an MEFP requires a team of committed individuals who provide expertise, guidance, and mentoring.

The design and utility of institutional teaching awards: a literature review.

Background: Institutional teaching awards have been used widely in higher education since the 1970s. Nevertheless, a comprehensive review of the literature on such awards has not been published since 1997.

Aim: We conducted a literature review to learn as much as possible about the design (e.

Perspective: Guidelines for reporting team-based learning activities in the medical and health sciences education literature.

Medical and health sciences educators are increasingly employing team-based learning (TBL) in their teaching activities. TBL is a comprehensive strategy for developing and using self-managed learning teams that has created a fertile area for medical education scholarship. However, because this method can be implemented in a variety of ways, published reports about TBL may be difficult to understand, critique, replicate, or compare unless authors fully describe their interventions.

The educational attributes and responsibilities of effective medical educators.

Of the many roles that the academic-educator may fulfill, that of teacher is particularly challenging. Building on prior recommendations from the literature, this article identifies the skill set of teachers across the medical education continuum-characteristics of attitude and attributes, knowledge, and pedagogic skills that permit effective teaching to be linked with effective learning and understanding. This examination which characterizes teachers' attitudes, knowledge, and skills serves to reemphasize the centrality of teaching within medical education, provides direction for faculty and institutions alike in the discharge of academic responsibilities, and makes educational accountability clear.

Supporting medical education research quality: the Association of American Medical Colleges' Medical Education Research Certificate program.

The quality of the medical education research (MER) reported in the literature has been frequently criticized. Numerous reasons have been provided for these shortcomings, including the level of research training and experience of many medical school faculty. The faculty development required to improve MER can take various forms.

Quality of standardised patient research reports in the medical education literature: review and recommendations.

Context: In order to assess or replicate the research findings of published reports, authors must provide adequate and transparent descriptions of their methods. We conducted 2 consecutive studies, the first to define reporting standards relating to the use of standardised patients (SPs) in research, and the second to evaluate the current literature according to these standards.

Methods: Standards for reporting SPs in research were established by representatives of the Grants and Research Committee of the Association of Standardized Patient Educators (ASPE).

Factors influencing implementation of team-based learning in health sciences education.

Background: Limited studies have looked at factors that lead to successful implementation of team-based learning (TBL). The purpose of this study was to identify contextual factors associated with implementation of TBL with a larger pool of individuals.

Method: The authors administered a questionnaire who had implemented TBL via the Web to participants who attended TBL workshops; 297 of 594 responded.

Team-based learning at ten medical schools: two years later.

Purpose: In 2003, we described initial use of team-based learning (TBL) at 10 medical schools. The purpose of the present study was to review progress and understand factors affecting the use of TBL at these schools during the subsequent 2 years.

Methods: Representatives from 10 schools evaluated in 2003 were again evaluated in 2005.

Making it work: the evolution of a medical educational fellowship program.

Longitudinal programs to enhance the educational skills of medical school faculty are present in many medical schools and academic health centers. Multiinstitutional programs are less common. Three health professions schools, Baylor College of Medicine, The University of Texas Medical School at Houston, and The University of Texas Dental Branch have jointly sponsored the Educational Scholars Fellowship Program (ESFP) since 2003.

Why invest in an educational fellowship program?

Expanding and refining the repertoire of medical school teaching faculty is required by the many current and changing demands of medical education. To meet this challenge academic medical institutions have begun to establish programs--including educational fellowship programs--to improve the teaching toolboxes of faculty and to empower them to assume leadership roles within both institutional and educational arenas. In this article, the authors (1) provide historical background on educational fellowship programs; (2) describe the prevalence and focus of these programs in North American medical schools, based on data from a recent (2005) survey; and (3) give a brief overview of the nine fellowship programs that are discussed fully in other articles in this issue of Academic Medicine.

The relationship between preceptor expectations and student performance on 2 pediatric objective structured clinical examination stations.

Background: We designed 2 pediatric objective structured clinical examination stations, 1 anemia case associated with lead exposure and 1 failure-to-gain-weight case associated with extended breast-feeding, to evaluate third-year medical students who had studied in pediatric community preceptors' offices as part of a 12-week multidisciplinary ambulatory clerkship rotation.

Objective: To examine the relationship between preceptor expectations and student performance on these 2 objective structured clinical examination stations.

Methods: To elicit community preceptors' expectations of student performance, we constructed a 46-item survey replicating checklists filled out by simulated patients evaluating student performance on the objective structured clinical examination stations.

Impact of selected medical conditions on self-reported lower-extremity function in Mexican-American elderly.

Objective: To examine the independent impact of common medical conditions on lower-extremity function in Mexican-American elderly.

Design: Cross-sectional study using a probability sample of non-institutionalized Mexican Americans aged 65 or older.

Setting: The five Southwestern states, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and California.

Lower-extremity functioning in older Mexican Americans and its association with medical problems.

Objective: To describe lower-extremity functioning in community-dwelling older Mexican Americans and to examine its relationship with medical problems.

Design: Cross-sectional analyses of survey and performance-based data obtained in a population-based study employing area probability sampling.

Setting: Households within selected census tracts of five Southwestern states: Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas.

The effect of medical conditions on the functional limitations of Mexican-American elderly.

We examined the relationship of self-reported functional status to common medical conditions using a probability sample of 3050 noninstitutionalized Mexican-American men and women aged 65 or older and residing in the Southwestern United States (Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas). All subjects were interviewed in person (n = 2,873) or by proxy (n = 177) in their homes during late 1993 and early 1994. The questionnaire obtained information on self-reported functional status and prevalence of arthritis, cancer, diabetes, stroke, heart attack, and hip fracture.

Evaluating problem solving based on the use of history findings in a standardized-patient examination.

Purpose: To evaluate a novel item format for assessing clinical problem solving in a standardized-patient examination (SPE).

Method: In 1992-93 a key-findings item format was included in two versions of three stations in an SPE (given in the style of an objective structured clinical examination) that was taken by 198 third-year students at the end of their three-month internal medicine clerkship at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. Each of the stations involved an extended matching question that listed ten to 12 findings.

A method for training simulated patients.

The purpose of the study on which this article was based was to examine the effectiveness of training simulated patients with self-instructional materials. A six-hour program consisting of eight videotapes and 10 sets of written materials was administered to 54 trainees. Pretest and posttest score comparisons revealed an increase in knowledge about simulation.