1,721,012 research outputs found
Oncology and medical education-past, present and future
No full textOncologists should contribute to the undergraduate curriculum whenever they can, and should teach communication skills, acute oncology, prescribing, and other transferable skills. Newly qualified doctors will care for many patients with cancer in their first years of work, and all doctors need to know when an urgent oncology referral is required and to be aware of the pace of change in oncology. Oncologists should involve their patients in teaching whenever it is appropriate. We should aim to inspire junior doctors to consider a career in oncology. The oncology education community should adopt new teaching methods, for example simulation, mock MDTs and student led clinics. CPD provided by honorable organisations, including online learning, is becoming more important for oncologists to keep up to date.</p
Physiotherapy improves shoulder function after treatment in women with early breast cancer
No full textEasing the transition from student to doctor: how can medical schools help prepare their graduates for starting work?
No full textBackground: in 2000/1, a survey found that 42% of newly qualified UK doctors felt their medical training had not prepared them well for starting work.Aim: to determine factors associated with preparedness.Methods: a questionnaire to all 5143 newly qualified doctors in May 2005.Results: the response rate was 2062/4784 = 43.1%. 15% of respondents felt poorly prepared by medical school for starting work. There were no associations between gender or graduate entry status and preparedness. The personality traits of conscientiousness (r = 0.14; p < 0.001) and extraversion (r = 0.15; p < 0.001) were associated with high preparedness. Neuroticism was associated with low preparedness (r = -0.16; p < 0.001).Respondents who had done shadowing attachments were more likely to feel prepared (58.6% vs 48.5% felt prepared; χ2 = 4.0; p = 0.05), as were graduates of problem based learning courses (61.3% vs 56.1%; χ2 = 5.0; p = 0.03). Preparedness correlated with agreement with the statements ‘My teaching was relevant to real life as a doctor’ (rho = 0.36; p < 0.001), and ‘As a house officer I found it easy to get help when I needed it’ (rho = 0.29; p < 0.001).Conclusions: improvements in the preparedness of UK medical school graduates may be due to increased relevance of undergraduate teaching to life as a junior doctor and increased support in the workplace.</p
Explicitly linking teaching and assessment of communication skills
No full textBACKGROUND: Communication skills teaching is known to be effective, but students feel there are discrepancies between how communication skills are taught and how they are assessed.AIMS: This study examined the effect of using standard assessment criteria during communication skills teaching on students' performance in an end-of-year summative OSCE.METHOD: Students attending their year 3 communication skills teaching were randomised to one of the following three conditions: the assessment criteria were available for reference on the medical school website; or students received the assessment criteria for use in the discussion and feedback; or each student's performance was graded by him- or her-self, his or her peers, the tutor and the actor using the standard assessment criteria.RESULTS: There was no significant difference in the end-of-year OSCE performance of students who received the three different conditions. Actively using standard assessment criteria during teaching did not therefore improve OSCE performance. There were low but significant correlations between the tutors' assessment and the students' self-assessment and between the tutors' assessment and the peer group's assessment.CONCLUSION: The congruence between observers in the assessments of role-played consultations using the standard assessment criteria indicates that the criteria may be helpful for summarizing feedback to students.</p
Ethnic stereotypes and the underachievement of UK medical students from ethnic minorities: qualitative study
Full text linkObjective To explore ethnic stereotypes of UK medical students in the context of academic underachievement of medical students from ethnic minorities.Design Qualitative study using semistructured one to one interviews and focus groups.Setting A London medical school.Participants 27 year 3 medical students and 25 clinical teachers, purposively sampled for ethnicity and sex.Methods Data were analysed using the theory of stereotype threat ( a psychological phenomenon thought to negatively affect the performance of people from ethnic minorities in educational contexts) and the constant comparative method.Results Participants believed the student- teacher relationship was vital for clinical learning. Teachers had strong perceptions about "good" clinical students ( interactive, keen, respectful), and some described being aggressive towards students whom they perceived as quiet, unmotivated, and unwilling. Students had equally strong perceptions about "good" clinical teachers ( encouraging, interested, interactive, non- aggressive). Students and teachers had concordant and well developed perceptions of the "typical" Asian clinical medical student who was considered over- reliant on books, poor at communicating with patients, too quiet during clinical teaching sessions, and unmotivated owing to being pushed into studying medicine by ambitious parents. Stereotypes of the "typical" white student were less well developed: autonomous, confident, and outgoing team player. Direct discrimination was not reported.Conclusions Asian clinical medical students may be more likely than white students to be perceived stereotypically and negatively, which may reduce their learning by jeopardising their relationships with teachers. The existence of a negative stereotype about their group also raises the possibility that underperformance of medical students from ethnic minorities may be partly due to stereotype threat. It is recommended that clinical teachers be given opportunities and training to encourage them to get to know their students as individuals and thus foster positive educational relationships with them
'It gives you an understanding you can't get from any book.' The relationship between medical students' and doctors' personal illness experiences and their performance: a qualitative and quantitative study
No full textBackground: anecdotes abound about doctors' personal illness experiences and the effect they have on their empathy and care of patients. We formally investigated the relationship between doctors' and medical students' personal illness experiences, their examination results, preparedness for clinical practice, learning and professional attitudes and behaviour towards patients.Methods: newly-qualified UK doctors in 2005 (n = 2062/4784), and two cohorts of students at one London medical school (n = 640/749) participated in the quantitative arm of the study. 37 Consultants, 1 Specialist Registrar, 2 Clinical Skills Tutors and 25 newly-qualified doctors participated in the qualitative arm. Newly-qualified doctors and medical students reported their personal illness experiences in a questionnaire. Doctors' experiences were correlated with self-reported preparedness for their new clinical jobs. Students' experiences were correlated with their examination results, and self-reported anxiety and depression. Interviews with clinical teachers, newly-qualified doctors and senior doctors qualitatively investigated how personal illness experiences affect learning, professional attitudes, and behaviour.Results: 85.5% of newly-qualified doctors and 54.4% of medical students reported personal illness experiences. Newly-qualified doctors who had been ill felt less prepared for starting work (p < 0.001), but those who had only experienced illness in a relative or friend felt more prepared (p = 0.02). Clinical medical students who had been ill were more anxious (p = 0.01) and had lower examination scores (p = 0.006). Doctors felt their personal illness experiences helped them empathise and communicate with patients. Medical students with more life experience were perceived as more mature, empathetic, and better learners; but illness at medical school was recognised to impede learning.Conclusion: the majority of the medical students and newly qualified doctors we studied reported personal illness experiences, and these experiences were associated with lower undergraduate examination results, higher anxiety, and lower preparedness. However reflection on such experiences may have improved professional attitudes such as empathy and compassion for patients. Future research is warranted in this area
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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