A study to test a theory of affective learning and to develop a data-gathering instrument for evaluation of affective learning is reported. Two primary areas of affective learning are (1) coping with feelings about professional knowledge and (2) coping with feelings about illness, disability, and death and dying. (Author/MLW)

A pilot program in respiratory therapeutics that includes a development and implementation model is reported. Its prerotational and postrotational evaluations and significant improvement in competency areas related to clinical skill areas are described. (Author/MLW)

A study to determine whether general internal medicine and traditional track medicine residents differed in their outpatient management of essential hypertension is discussed. General internal medicine residents seem to do better in the areas of assessment of drug side effects and patient education. (MLW)

An effort to teach medical students practical stress management skills is discussed. A group of students volunteered to participate in a six-session program that taught them personal stress management techniques including self-relaxation training, schedule-planning, priority-setting, leisure time-planning, and cognitive modification techniques.…

The evaluation of a behavior and development training program that was integrated into a general pediatric training residency at Duke is reported. Results suggest that residents perceive a high relevance for psychosocial concepts and an increasing competence with these concepts after training. (Author/MLW)

Objectives, methods of instruction, and evaluation of a preclinical decision-making course are described. Objectives were for reading and writing clinical algorithms and clinical decision analysis. Taped interview problems are found a promising tool for measuring decision-making skills. (MSE)

Identifies 14 cognitive components of the diagnostic thinking process in clinical problem solving. Analyzes the differences between medical students, hospital house officers, and hospital registrars in London, England, on the relative use of such thinking processes. Suggests that diagnostic thinking processes cannot be incorporated into medical…

A course in oncology for freshman medical students at the Medical College of Pennsylvania is discussed. It is thought that appropriate training of medical students appears to lead to more positive attitudes toward cancer, but many of these efforts have been directed to groups at later stages of medical education. (MLW)

A course to teach students how to interview medical patients, to allow for discussion of student concerns about entering into clinical work, and to make students aware of the complex psychosocial factors related to medical illness is described. (MLW)

The reliability and validity of a priori estimates of item characteristics are assessed. Results suggest that judges can make a modest contribution to estimation prior to actual administration. (Author/GK)

A survey of dental schools revealed little standardization of student requirements for dental radiography in the United States. There was a high degree of variability as to what constituted a full radiographic survey, which has implications concerning the maximum limits to patient exposure to radiation. (Author/MLW)

The influence of factual knowledge about the aged, general attitudes toward the aged, and personal contact with the aged on first-year medical students' attitudes toward geriatric patients and geriatric medicine was examined. Entering medical students indicated a preference for working with younger patients rather than aged patients. (Author/MLW)

A clinical decision-making simulation that helps students understand the relationship between psychosocial factors and medical problem-solving is described. A group of medical students and one faculty member comprise a selection committee to agree on the order in which four patients will be selected for renal dialysis. (MLW)

Discussed is a projected overabundance of physicians by 1990 and a possible cut in funding in medical schools because of this overabundance. Also discussed is the shortage of clinical investigators who are physicians because salaries for physicians are much higher than for clinical investigators. (DS)

Data from a series of questions about resident selection from the American Association of Directors of Psychiatry Residency Training Questionnaire are reported. Data indicated that personal characteristics which can be gauged from an interview are deemed to be more important in psychiatric resident selection than are academically relevant…