Undergraduate students' experience in 'peripheral' and 'teaching' hospitals compared.

Increasingly, British medical schools are using hospitals other than designated teaching hospitals for the provision of undergraduate clinical experience. This paper reports upon a study which compared students' experience in 'peripheral' and 'teaching' hospitals. Students report greater involvement in peripheral hospital firms and a more encouraging atmosphere.

Thirty years on: examination performance and career success of the 1950-1 intake of Cambridge medical students.

The relation between preclinical tripos and clinical examination results and subsequent career success of 188 medical graduates of Cambridge University was measured using five indicators of success. A generally positive relation was found, but this was not specific enough to make accurate individual predictions. Present levels of appointment were more closely related to clinical than preclinical results.

The training of junior doctors for accident and emergency work: a case for urgent treatment?

The experience of casualty officers at the time of appointment has been compared, by questionnaire survey, with abilities and responsibilities 3 months after starting work in Accident and Emergency Medicine. Initial clinical and practical knowledge frequently did not match the demands of the new post. Some doctors felt unable to assume initial responsibility for important and commonplace clinical conditions.

House officers' perceptions of their experience and competence.

An earlier study reported upon graduating medical students' experience of practical procedures and acute conditions. This paper reports briefly upon the results of a pilot study assessing house officers' cumulative experience at the end of each of their pre-registration posts. Their experience of a list of conditions and procedures by the end of the pre-registration year is presented, together with house officers' estimation of their present competence to manage and undertake them.

Health policy, student selection and curriculum reform.

Student selection is a major component of the training process. This paper argues that the traditional approach taken to selection--using the criterion-prediction model--has limited utility in the training of health care professionals. Not only are there additional educational purposes which selection can fulfil (such as increasing the heterogeneity of students, encouraging realistic self-selection and providing the first exposure to the "ethos" of a profession), but selection can also be used as a direct strategy to assist in the implementation of health service policies--for example, by contributing to social equalization, community participation in health services and community responsibility for health.

An evaluation of medical students' practical experience upon qualification.

The acquisition of many practical skills-including competence to take initial responsibility for managing serious or life-threatening situations-is rarely assessed in formal medical qualifying examinations in the UK. This paper reports an investigation of two groups of graduands' experiences of practical procedures and acute conditions. Similar patterns of experience were reported by students undertaking their clinical work in different medical schools, including the lack of opportunity to practise certain procedures.

Teaching anaesthetics to medical students. The design and evaluation of a course in a new clinical school.

The paper describes the rationale and implementation of anaesthetics teaching in the new 2 1/4-year clinical medical course at Cambridge University. A programme designed to monitor and evaluate the teaching established, and the results are reported. Significant improvements in students' knowledge of anaesthetics and their experience of practical procedures were noted, as compared to a control group.

The preregistration year at cambridge: one cohort of graduates' attitudes and experiences.

A questionnaire survey of the first cohort of Cambridge Clinical School graduates in their preregistration house posts revealed overall satisfaction with the posts they had undertaken, despite considerable variation in the demands made upon them. However, nearly 50 per cent thought that there was insufficient time to discuss diagnosis and patient management, especially with their consultant chiefs. The results are contrasted with those of earlier surveys.

Medical student selection: a tentative attempt to establish a code of practice.

Each year medical schools in the United Kingdom select about 3800 entrants from about 12 000 applicants. The problem of selection is thus substantial, but the objectives, policies, and practices of different medical schools differ sharply and details of the procedures used are rarely made clear. There is no reliable or up-to-date information available for schools, careers of advisers, and prospective candidates to keep abreast of these practices and policies and of changes made to them.

Cambridge students training in the London clinical medical schools. Some inter-school differences in entry qualifications and final examination results.

From data on the preclinical degree classifications and final M.B. results of 910 Cambridge students studying in London clinical medical schools, substantial differences between schools emerge.

Cell contact and positional communication in hydra.

Positional communication and the functional coupling of muscular reflexes were examined in grafted hydra. A head and distal gastric region inhibited head regeneration by a host sub-hypostome within 4--5 h of grafting. Functionally coupled pathways which indicated the presence of gap junctions also formed between graft and host during this time.

A pilot experiment on the inter-examiner reliability of short essay questions.

Although long essay questions have been shown generally to have a low inter-examiner reliability, they are still much used in undergraduate medical examinations, evidently because examiners feel that essays have greater inherent validity than some of the modern 'objective' techniques such as multiple choice questions (MCQs). Evidence exists in the literature to suggest that the reliability of short (c. 10 minutes) essay questions may be higher.

No. 1: monitoring the new shorter clinical course at cambridge.

This is the first in an occasional series of articles describing innovations, successful and unsuccessful, in medical education. I t is hoped that they may encourage others to attempt similar experiments4r warn them away from unprofitable avenues of development. The new Clinical Medical School at the University of Cambridge, UK, has established a project to monitor and evaluate its new, shorter course.

Neurology Teaching in UK Medical Schools.

From time to time, Medical Teacher will publish surveys of topical aspects of medical educational practice in the UK and elsewhere. The first article in this series reports the results of an enquiry into the teaching of the expanding specialty of neurology and neurosurgery in clinical medical schools in the UK. It shows wide differences in the arrangements made for teaching the specialty, and considerable dissatisfaction amongst many teachers with what they regard as insufficient teaching provision.

Multiple choice questions: to guess or not to guess.

Multiple choice question papers in which the student has a 'don't know' option are widely used in undergraduate and postgraduate examinations in Medicine. In the present study students' performance in papers with a 'don't know' option has been compared with their performance when they are instructed to answer all the questions. By completing questions left unanswered (i.