This column is intended to address the kinds of knotty problems and dilemmas with which many scholars grapple in studying health professions education. In this article, the authors address the question of co-first authorship bearing in mind the why, when and how of this consideration as well as the potential consequences. This guidance should help…

This discursive article explores the integration of digital storytelling into an occupational therapy gross anatomy course as a novel pedagogical approach to deepen students' understanding of the functional significance of hand anatomy. Digital storytelling utilizes technology to produce self-narrated meaningful stories and presentations that…

Optometry is becoming more and more interdisciplinary and gives new opportunities for collaborative research due to the accumulative complexity of knowledge and the rapid transformation of the technological capabilities in domains such as information technology, optics, applied engineering, health sciences, and entrepreneurship and management.…

While explicit conceptual models help to inform research, they are left out of much of the health professions education (HPE) literature. One reason may be the limited understanding about how to develop conceptual models with intention and rigor. Group concept mapping (GCM) is a mixed methods conceptualization approach that has been used to…

Higher education accreditation has spread internationally as a vehicle for quality assurance and improvement but is strongly influenced by accreditation practices in the United States. The organisational structure and processes of seven United States health professions accreditors were analysed to identify common characteristics that reflect…

Empathy is extolled in Western healthcare and medical education as an exemplary quality to cultivate in trainees and providers. Yet it remains an elusive and inadequately understood attribute. It posits a "one size fits all" unidimensional attribute applicable across contexts with scant attention given to its multifaceted dimensions in…

Innovative teaching approaches are changing traditional approaches by using a variety of teaching and learning methods to allow learners to succeed. This paper describes a new instructional model for healthcare education based on the science of learning, educational theories, and best practices in lesson design. The Visualize Whole-Self (VW) Model…

Art-based education has been gaining the attention of healthcare educators as a means of promoting empathy, observation, and mindfulness in healthcare practitioners. This paper discusses using art-based education to encourage transformative learning and social justice in healthcare education. Specifically, we explore how this approach can…

Over the past two decades, there has been a growing interest in the role of universities in developing generic skills, in addition to disciplinary ones, to help students adapt to a changing workplace. The need to develop these skills is particularly critical for healthcare students who must face challenges in health systems. This scoping study,…

Stressors inherent to training and stemming from the learning environment are associated with high rates of burnout, depression, and mental health problems in health professions students (HPS). There is evidence that disadvantaged or stigmatized groups are particularly affected. These problems not only impact students after graduation but may also…

This article explores the student outcomes of a progressive case on the development of professional identity and professionalism within first-year student pharmacists.

This article critically examines three assumptions underlying recent efforts to advance interdisciplinary research-defined in this article as communication and collaboration between researchers across academic disciplines (e.g. Sociology, Psychology, Biology)--and examines these assumptions' implications for health professions education research…

Ensuring trainees develop the flexibility with their knowledge to address novel problems, and to efficiently build upon prior knowledge to learn new knowledge is a common goal in health profession education. How trainees come to develop this capacity to transfer and transform knowledge across contexts can be described by adaptive expertise, which…

The study of adaptive expertise in health professions education has focused almost exclusively on cognitive skills, largely ignoring the processes of adaptation in the performance of precision technical skills. We present a focused review of literature to argue that repetitive practice is much less repetitive than often perceived. Our main thesis…

Context: "Tensegrity" is a structural-organization model initially described in the architecture and design fields. By applying tensegrity design principles to biological structures, scientists have developed "biotensegrity" to explain a complex systems-on-systems structural-organization philosophy for integrated human…