Medical student perspectives on geriatrics and geriatric education.

Objective: To ascertain medical students' perspectives on geriatrics.

Design: Interpretative phenomenological analysis.

Setting: An allopathic, Liaison Committee on Medical Education-accredited, former Donald W.

Is it science? A study of the attitudes of medical trainees and physicians toward qualitative and quantitative research.

This study examined the degree of acceptance of qualitative research by medical trainees and physicians, and explored the causes for any differences in their support of qualitative versus quantitative research. Thirty-two individuals at four levels of medical training were studied. Eight philosophers of science served for construct validation.

What do emergency medicine learners want from their teachers? A multicenter focus group analysis.

Background: To the best of the authors' knowledge, there are no reports describing what learners believe are good emergency medicine (EM) teaching practices. EM faculty developers are compromised by this lack of knowledge about what EM learners appreciate in their teachers.

Objectives: To determine what Canadian EM learners consider to be good prerequisites and strategies for effective teaching in the emergency department (ED).

Creating effective learning in today's emergency departments: how accomplished teachers get it done.

Study Objectives: Significant impediments to effective emergency department (ED) teaching compromise what could otherwise be an excellent learning milieu. There is little literature to guide faculty development around specific emergency medicine teaching techniques. We determine what recognized experts in emergency medicine teaching consider to be the important clinical teaching behaviors that make them good teachers, the main impediments to good teaching in EDs, and important prerequisites for a good ED teacher.

Community psychiatrists who see geriatric patients: what's training got to do with it?

Objective: This study examines the issues influencing psychiatrists' decisions to provide care to the under-served geriatric population.

Methods: Community-based psychiatrists who see geriatric patients participated in focus group discussions exploring factors that influence the characteristics of their current practices.

Results: Personal themes, environmental issues and quality of residency training emerged as important factors interacting in eventual practice choice.

The challenge of creating new OSCE measures to capture the characteristics of expertise.

Purpose: Although expert clinicians approach interviewing in a different manner than novices, OSCE measures have not traditionally been designed to take into account levels of expertise. Creating better OSCE measures requires an understanding of how the interviewing style of experts differs objectively from novices.

Methods: Fourteen clinical clerks, 14 family practice residents and 14 family physicians were videotaped during 2 15-minute standardized patient interviews.

Adolescent standardized patients: method of selection and assessment of benefits and risks.

Background: Our psychiatric Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) group wishes to develop adolescent psychiatry OSCE stations. The literature regarding adolescent standardized patient (SP) selection methods and simulation effects, however, offered limited assurance that such adolescents would not experience adverse simulation effects.

Purpose: Evaluation of adolescent SP selection methods and simulation effects for low- and high-stress roles.

Teaching and learning medical ethics.

Three main questions are central to teaching and learning medical ethics. Can ethics be taught? If it can, what are some of its teachable components? And what teaching methods are appropriate? The author supports the concept of ethical competence as the basis of an ethical practice. Ethical competence is a set of insights, skills, understandings, ways of thinking which can be taught.

Medical ethics in the next 25 years.

In the next 10-15 years most of the major ethical dilemmas facing family physicians will grow more acute. This is not to imply that things are getting worse. On the contrary, it is the simultaneous growth of miraculous methods and frightening risks that will make the dilemmas more acute.