Offers suggestions to help medical schools, so often subsumed in Academic Medical Centers, rediscover their unique reasons for existence and distinguish their core missions from core businesses. Calls for mission-based management and mission-based budgeting and discusses the role of medical education. (SLD)

Family medicine physicians were surveyed about their knowledge of substance abuse and wishes for continuing education. Results showed 10% had no substance abuse training in medical school, 15% had none during residency, and 21% had no continuing education on substance abuse. Most preferred continuing education programs as part of an annual…

Attitudes toward managed care of 431 medical residents and 153 advanced practice nursing students were compared. Medical students were more likely to agree that managed care emphasizes cost over quality and threatens autonomy. Nursing students were more likely to agree that it encourages preventive care. Medical students were less enthusiastic…

The study analyzed subjective grades, clerkship examination scores, and National Board of Medical Examiners, Part I scores of 537 third year medical students. Findings indicated that students' scores on clerkship examinations improved as the academic year progressed but that clerkship site (community-affiliated hospital or medical center hospital)…

Compared attitudes toward care of dying patients of beginning medical and nursing students with no professional death-related experience. On five of six attitude measures, female nursing students expressed more positive attitude than either male or female medical students. Hours of death-and-dying coursework and general life experience exerted…

Study examines changes in knowledge, attitudes, and preventive efforts of Malaysian students concerning cigarette smoking and environmental exposure to tobacco smoke from their first pre-clinical year in medical school until their final clinical year. Although there were significant improvements in knowledge about smoking and environmental…

Undertook two studies (n=113 and n=55) a year apart, to create an instrument that measures nutritional competence and self-efficacy among prospective physicians. Results using Rasch modeling demonstrate the reliability and validity of the scale for assessing mastery of applied nutrition among prospective physicians. (SLD)

Analyzes three distinct periods that characterize women's efforts to become successful physicians: the Victorian era, the first 70 years of the 1900s, and the past twenty years. Compares social, historical, and scientific factors which have affected the number of enrollments and graduations by women. (EMK)

Surveyed first-year students at four Southeastern medical schools about diversity issues. Found that perceptions of diversity were influenced by students' own demographic characteristics and those of their medical school. The more diverse the class, the more comfortable students were with diversity and the more they valued its contribution to…

Assessed students' competence in addressing the health beliefs and cultural concerns of a standardized patient, an African American woman with diabetes, during a clinical interview. Found that minority students displayed greater competence in addressing the patient's concerns about altering culturally-based dietary behaviors; white students…

Collected Kolb Learning Style Inventory data from veterinary medical students upon matriculation and 13-14 years later and compared the data with transcript and career data. Found that students have diverse learning styles that do not appear to influence completion of the curriculum or future professional activities. (EV)

Discusses four trends in the U.S. health care system that affect how women's health care is delivered: (1) the restructuring of primary care; (2) initiatives in quality assessment; (3) changes in patterns of health insurance coverage; and (4) threats to the health care safety net. Indicates that medical educators must link training to these…

Describes the Palliative Education Assessment Tool (PEAT), an innovative assessment to facilitate curricular mapping of palliative care education. The PEAT comprises seven palliative care domains, each of which details specific objectives of knowledge, skills, and attitudes. PEAT enables educators to describe a specific multidimensional aspect of…

Investigates the themes of 16 family practice residents' art work and their characteristics (age, gender, resident year, undergraduate training location) in relationship to stress. Residents' drawing were linked by common themes of psychological pressure, anxiety, a sense of being overwhelmed, and depression. Evidence of stress was more frequently…

Compared the results of differential item functioning (DIF) analysis with matching based on the total test score, matching based on subtest scores, or multivariate matching using multiple subtest scores. Results using 2,000 responses from medical students suggest that matching on multiple subtest scores may be superior to the other methods. (SLD)