Question storming: The power of Questions-A method to increase options for action in uncertainty.

Rationale: Question Storming offers a method that enables one to hold the condition of uncertainty in reflection without the need for resolution. Global interdependencies and unprecedented access to information, social media and multiple forms of communications challenge our ability to see, understand and influence change effectively and efficiently. The tension and need to cope effectively with massive uncertainties cannot be resolved with current methods leading to a necessity for people to seek new ways to transform their understanding and explore new options for action.

Ten Global Challenges in Medical Education: Wicked Issues and Options for Action.

Medical education and the health professions are facing multiple global challenges that are context specific yet are patterned across contexts. These challenges have been described as wicked issues that defy known solutions and are viewed differently by different people. Three simple approaches, inquiry, pattern recognition, and Adaptive Action, are presented as a way forward to tame wicked issues and take informed action.

Wicked Problems in Health Professions Education: Adaptive Action in Action.

This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. Each educational institution is different.

Medical educators: How they define themselves - Results of an international web survey.

Background: Little is known about medical educators' self-definition.

Aims: The aim of this study is to survey an international community of medical educators focusing on the medical educators' self-definition.

Methods: Within a comprehensive, web-based survey, an open question on the participants' views of how they would define a "medical educator" was sent to 2200 persons on the mailing list of the Association for Medical Education in Europe.

Residents' and standardized patients' perspectives on empathy: issues of agreement.

Objective: We investigated correlations between residents' scores on the Jefferson Scale of Empathy (JSE), residents' perceptions of their empathy during standardized-patient encounters, and the perceptions of standardized patients.

Methods: Participants were 214 first-year residents in internal medicine or family medicine from 13 residency programs taking standardized patient-based clinical skills assessment in 2011. We analyzed correlations between residents' JSE scores; standardized patients' perspectives on residents' empathy during OSCE encounters, using the Jefferson Scale of Patient Perceptions of Physician Empathy; and residents' perspectives on their own empathy, using a modified version of this scale.

Project-based faculty development by international health professions educators: practical strategies.

Background: Project design and implementation, applied to real life situations, is emerging as an educational strategy for application of health professions faculty development learning within a supportive environment.

Aim: We conducted a retrospective analysis of project evolution to identify common experiences, challenges, and successful strategies of 54 mid-career faculty members from 18 developing countries who attended the Foundation for the Advancement of International Medical Education and Research Institute between 2001 and 2006 and designed, conducted, and evaluated education innovations at their home institutions.

Methods: Chronological analysis of the evolution of 54 projects over the initial 16-18 months of the 2-year Fellowship was based on an iterative qualitative analysis of 324 reports and individual interview transcripts collected over 6 years.

Ethics education in research involving human beings in undergraduate medicine curriculum in Brazil.

Introduction: The Brazilian national curriculum guidelines for undergraduate medicine courses inspired and influenced the groundwork for knowledge acquisition, skills development and the perception of ethical values in the context of professional conduct.

Objective: The evaluation of ethics education in research involving human beings in undergraduate medicine curriculum in Brazil, both in courses with active learning processes and in those with traditional lecture learning methodologies.

Methods: Curricula and teaching projects of 175 Brazilian medical schools were analyzed using a retrospective historical and descriptive exploratory cohort study.

Research in assessment: consensus statement and recommendations from the Ottawa 2010 Conference.

Medical education research in general is a young scientific discipline which is still finding its own position in the scientific range. It is rooted in both the biomedical sciences and the social sciences, each with their own scientific language. A more unique feature of medical education (and assessment) research is that it has to be both locally and internationally relevant.

Expertise, needs and challenges of medical educators: Results of an international web survey.

Background: Little is known about how medical educators perceive their own expertise, needs and challenges in relation to medical education.

Aim: To survey an international community of medical educators with a focus on: (1) their expertise, (2) their need for training and (3) perceived challenges.

Methods: A web-based survey comprising closed and open free-text questions was sent to 2200 persons on the mailing list of the Association for Medical Education in Europe.

Complexity and health professions education: a basic glossary.

Rationale And Aims: The study of health professions education in the context of complexity science and complex adaptive systems involves different concepts and terminology that are likely to be unfamiliar to many health professions educators. A list of selected key terms and definitions from the literature of complexity science is provided to assist readers to navigate familiar territory from a different perspective.

Terms And Concepts: include agent, attractor, bifurcation, chaos, co-evolution, collective variable, complex adaptive systems, complexity science, deterministic systems, dynamical system, edge of chaos, emergence, equilibrium, far from equilibrium, fuzzy boundaries, linear system, non-linear system, random, self-organization and self-similarity.

Self-organisation, integration and curriculum in the complex world of medical education.

Context: The world of medical education is more complex than ever and there seems to be no end in sight. Complexity science is particularly relevant as medical education embraces a movement towards more authentic curricula focusing on integration, interactive small-group learning, and early and sustained clinical and community experiences.

Discussion: A medical school as a whole, and the expression of its curriculum through the interactions, exchanges and learning that take place within and outside of it, is a complex system.

Online faculty development for medical educators: experience of a South Asian program.

Context: India has the highest number of medical schools in the world. Teacher shortages and inadequate training of existing faculty are a major problem. On-line faculty development and learning is a plausible component of developing medical teachers in the essentials of pedagogy.

Medical students learn over distance using virtual reality simulation.

Introduction: This article presents the results of a demonstration project that was designed with the goal to determine the feasibility and acceptability of medical students in using distance technology and virtual reality (VR) simulation within a problem-based learning (PBL).

Methods: This pilot project involved students from the Universities of New Mexico and Hawaii and compared (1) control groups consisting of medical students in a tutor-guided PBL session using a text-based case, (2) distance groups using the same text-based case but interacting over distance from multiple sites, (3) groups using a VR simulation scenario integrated into the case without interaction over distance, and (4) combination groups interacting over distance from multiple sites with integration of a VR simulation scenario.

Results: The study results suggest that it is possible to successfully conduct a PBL tutorial with medical students from two institutions with the integration VR and distributed distance interaction in combination or independently.

The effect of longterm vs shortterm tutors on the quality of the tutorial process and student performance.

Small-group, problem- based learning can require a significant amount of individual faculty time when groups last as long as 10 weeks. One solution is to use two short-term (3-5 weeks) tutors instead of a single long-term (6-10 weeks) tutor. This study was performed to evaluate whether having short-term instead of a long-term tutors affected student performance and/or the quality of the tutorial process.