For the project, an actress created a patient character, staging a consultation among a group of 36 medical students. The consultation process was monitored by a teacher and was stopped by "timeout" at any critical incidence. Students reflected on possible strategies and, one at a time tried out their own or someone else's proposal. The project…

In response to aging patient demographics and a call for increased formal geriatric training in medical schools, a community volunteer geriatric mentor program, Bridging Generations, was developed to shape attitudes of medical students caring for the elderly. The geriatric mentor experience provided students with unique insight into the challenges…

The present study tested the hypothesis that medical specialties classified as technique oriented or patient oriented would be distinguished by RIASEC code, with technique-oriented specialists resembling Investigative-Realistic types and patient-oriented specialists resembling Investigative-Social types. Using longitudinal data obtained from 447…

Understanding spatial relationships among anatomic structures is an essential skill for physicians. Traditional medical education--using books, lectures, physical models, and cadavers--may be insufficient for teaching complex anatomical relationships. This study was designed to measure whether teaching complex anatomy to medical students using…

Unlike the airline industry, where pilots first learn to fly on simulators before navigating planes, physicians practice invasive procedures on real patients. To determine the need for the simulated training of invasive procedures prior to working on patients, we studied the views of physicians-in-training. Five hundred medical students,…

Formative assessments are systematically designed instructional interventions to assess and provide feedback on students' strengths and weaknesses in the course of teaching and learning. Despite their known benefits to student attitudes and learning, medical school curricula have been slow to integrate such assessments into the curriculum. This…

A key principle in problem-based learning (PBL) is the student linking learning from different sources to enrich understanding. We have explored how medical students based in a clinical environment use clinical experience within PBL groups. We recorded the discussion of 12 third-year groups, which were meeting for the second time on a PBL case,…

Objective: To assess depression rates in contemporary medical students. Method: The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) was administered anonymously to two medical school classes at matriculation, the end of first year, and the end of second year. Results: Median scores for both classes were low at all points. The proportion of students scoring in the…

OBJECTIVE: The authors explored the time that is currently devoted to psychiatry clerkships to determine whether "shortened" clerkships differ in course director satisfaction and evaluation strategies. METHOD: An 18-item questionnaire was sent to 150 U.S. and Canadian clerkship directors. RESULTS: The return rate was 74% (111 questionnaires).…

This study compared "Structured Controversy" (a semi-formal debate like small group activity) with a traditional open discussion format for medical and physical therapy students. We found that those students who had participated in Structured Controversy changed their personal opinion on the topic more than those who were in the Open Discussion…

Research on Problem-Based Learning in medical education has undergone an evolutionary process from initial proof of concept studies through critiques of the original methods and beyond. Initial studies focused on whether or not the instructional method was effective for medical students and the goals of medical education. Despite much movement…

Although medical education has long recognized the importance of community service, most medical schools have not formally nor fully incorporated service learning into their curricula. To address this problem, we describe the initial design, development, implementation, and evaluation of a service-learning project within a first-year medical…

Physics as a subsidiary subject has to match very different objectives and to cope with a variety of students' learning conditions. Targeted labwork means that a careful choice among these objectives is made according to research outcomes. For medical students, a targeted labwork course in physics was developed. Essentially, the development was…

Introduction: Racially segregated schooling, a legacy of Apartheid policies, continues to hamper education in South Africa. Students entering university from suboptimal circumstances are at significant risk of demonstrating poor academic performance and dropping out of their programmes. Attempts to address the educational needs of these students…

We evaluated the effectiveness of an e-learning tutorial (iPOMA) as a supplement to traditional teaching of the Performance-Oriented Mobility Assessment. Second-year medical students (137) completed the iPOMA, in preparation for a session on fall risk assessment consisting of a lecture, practice with elder volunteers and small group debriefing.…