The effects of gender and age on evaluation of trainees and faculty in gastroenterology.

Objectives: We studied whether differences exist in evaluation scores of faculty and trainees in gastroenterology (GI) based on the gender of the evaluator or evaluatee, or the evaluator-evaluatee gender pairing.

Methods: We examined evaluations of faculty and trainees (GI fellows and internal medicine residents rotating on GI services), using mixed linear models to assess effects of the four possible evaluator-evaluatee gender pairings. Potential confounding variables were adjusted for, and random effects were used to account for repeated assessments.

A strategy to reduce interruptions at hospital morning report.

Background: The learning atmosphere of hospital morning report is frequently interrupted by nonurgent beeper pages to participating residents.

Intervention: During 176 consecutive internal medicine morning reports, 1 of the 4 chief residents at a single academic medical center collected and answered house staff pages during the 30-minute conference.

Results: A total of 884 pages were answered during this period.

Determining reliability of clinical assessment scores in real time.

Background: Assessment score reliability is usually based on a single analysis. However, reliability is an essential component of validity and assessment validation and revision is a never-ending cycle. For ongoing assessments over extended time frames, real-time reliability computations may alert users to possible changes in the learning environment that are revealed by variations in reliability over time.

Musculoskeletal injection.

Patients commonly present to primary care physicians with musculoskeletal symptoms. Clinicians certified in internal medicine must be knowledgeable about the diagnosis and management of musculoskeletal diseases, yet they often receive inadequate postgraduate training on this topic. The musculoskeletal problems most frequently encountered in our busy injection practice involve, in decreasing order, the knees, trochanteric bursae, and glenohumeral joints.

The impact of adding 1 month of intensive care unit training in a categorical internal medicine residency program.

Objective: To determine the impact of adding a month of critical care training in the postgraduate year (PGY)-2 on the critical care skills of PGY-3 residents.

Design: Prospective, nonrandomized.

Setting: The internal medicine (IM) residency program of a tertiary care medical center.

Experience with a medical education research group at the Mayo Clinic.

Background: Clinician-educators are encouraged to engage in scholarly activity despite numerous barriers to conducting educational research. We found no reports of formal educational research groups among general internists.

Aim: To evaluate a Scholarship in Medical Education Group (SIMEG) for general internists.

Behaviors of highly professional resident physicians.

Context: Unprofessional behaviors in medical school predict high stakes consequences for practicing physicians, yet little is known about specific behaviors associated with professionalism during residency.

Objective: To identify behaviors that distinguish highly professional residents from their peers.

Design, Setting, And Participants: Comparative study of 148 first-year internal medicine residents at Mayo Clinic from July 1, 2004, through June 30, 2007.

Clinician attitudes toward biostatistics.

Objective: To assess clinician attitudes toward biostatistics at an academic medical center.

Participants And Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional survey of medical students, internal medicine resident physicians, and internal medicine teaching faculty at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Rochester, MN, in April 2005.

Results: Of 468 eligible participants, 301 (64.

Changing morning report: evaluation of a transition to an interactive mixed-learner format in an internal medicine residency program.

Background: Morning report is an important conference for medical education, but direct comparisons of approaches to morning report have only rarely been reported.

Description: During the 2003 to 2004 academic year, we conducted both our traditional single-learner-level morning report and a new highly interactive multiple-learner-level format. Attendees were rotating students, residents, and faculty on the inpatient general medicine services.