Clerkships would benefit from teachers' improved understanding of the didactic aspects of their task. The purpose of this study is to identify factors that determine the teaching quality of clerkships and to examine the predictive value of these factors for students' global satisfaction. Thus, results would be further reflected to clinical…

The authors synthesize preliminary findings from an interdisciplinary study of the practicum/clinical phase of undergraduate pre-service education in the professions. Early data analysis identified similarities and differences across disciplines in terms of: (a) the terminology describing each practicum program, (b) the programs' key…

A project to develop the Longitudinal Primary Care Program at University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine is described. In addition to producing three curriculum documents, this 3-year project included a faculty development program, preparation of a training handbook and communications system for medical preceptors, and development of a…

OSCE examinations were held in May and June 2002 for all third and fourth year and some fifth year medical students at the University of Leeds. There has been an arbitrary pass mark of 65% for these examinations. However, we recognise that it is important to adopt a systematic approach towards standard setting in all examinations so held a trial…

A problem solving study focused on the effectiveness of the student speech therapy practicum, part of the speech pathology and audiology program in the Department of Communication Disorders at Hampton Institute (Virginia). The objective was to investigate participants' attitudes toward the program and its problems and provide solutions for…

Three optometric educators provide separate perspectives on how and why to increase the amount of clinical experience in the optometry program, addressing such issues as how many patient encounters are enough to provide adequate training, salient factors in clinical experience outside patient encounter numbers (facilities and equipment, preceptor,…

A plan was developed to assure equivalency of clinical education among the medical laboratory technician (MLT) programs affiliated with Sandhills Community College. The plan was designed by faculty to monitor the quality of clinical courses offered by the clinical affiliates. The major strategies were to develop competencies, slide/tape modules, a…

Context: Various research studies have examined the question of whether expert or non-expert raters, faculty or students, evaluators or standardized patients, give more reliable and valid summative assessments of performance on Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs). Less studied has been the question of whether or not non-faculty…

A program designed to develop, conduct, and evaluate an educational workshop series to prepare physician's assistant (PA) clinical coordinators to assist clinical instructors in the planning, teaching, and evaluation of students in clinical skills is described. Six regional workshops were held, with two workshops each in three geographic regions.…