Group items tagged

"It is important that the clinical teacher teaches trainees the specific skills sets of the expert general practitioner (e.g. synthesising skills, recognising prototypes, focusing on cues and clues, using community resources and dealing with uncertainty) in order to promote clinical reasoning in the context of general practice or family medicine. Clinical teachers need to understand their own reasoning processes as well as be able to convey that knowledge to their trainees. They also need to understand the developmental stages of clinical reasoning and be able to nurture each trainee's own expertise. Strategies for facilitating effective clinical reasoning in trainees include adequate exposure to patients, offering the trainees opportunity for reflection and feedback, and coaching on the techniques of reasoning in the general practice context."

"Four faculty members describe their collective experiences of being involved in a community of practice (CoP) designed to deconstruct individual teaching experiences through critical reflection and dialogue. "

"Narratives have always been a vital part of medicine. Stories about patients, the experience of caring for them, and their recovery from illness have always been shared-among physicians as well as among patients and their relatives. With the evolution of "modern" medicine, narratives were increasingly neglected in favor of "facts and findings," which were regarded as more scientific and objective. Now, in recent years medical narrative is changing-from the stories about patients and their illnesses, patient narratives and the unfolding and interwoven story between health care professionals and patients are both gaining momentum, leading to the creation or defining of narrative-based medicine (NBM). The term was coined deliberately to mark its distinction from evidence-based medicine (EBM); in fact, NBM was propagated to counteract the shortcomings of EBM.1,2 But what is NBM? Is it a specific therapeutic tool, a special form of physician-patient communication, a qualitative research tool, or does it simply signify a particular attitude towards patients and doctoring? It can be all of the above with different forms or genres of narrative or practical approach called for depending on the field of application. "

Based on the results of this study, the use of social media applications may be seen as an efficient and effective method for physicians to keep up-to-date and to share newly acquired medical knowledge with other physicians within the medical community and to improve the quality of patient care. Future studies are needed to examine the impact of the meaningful use of social media on physicians' knowledge, attitudes, skills, and behaviors in practice.

" This research suggests that the theoretical advantages linked to the self-assessment process are a result of its feedback component rather than the practice of self-assessment isolated from feedback. Further research exploring the effects of different contextual and personal factors on students' self-assessment is needed."

"Despite differences in practice patterns of nurses and physicians in using whiteboards, our findings suggest that all providers value their potential as a tool to improve teamwork, communication, and patient care. Successful adoption of whiteboard use may be enhanced through strategies that emphasize a patient-centered focus while also addressing important barriers to use."

HeLMET is a JISC funded project based run by the University of Manchester which is applying Web 2.0 to support on-line consultation and brainstorming in distributed communities of practice.

"Creating an enabling and nurturing environment prior to and during residency training may be necessary to sustain the motivation to engage in health advocacy. Findings from this study suggest possibilities for a resident-guided participatory curriculum development process around health advocacy. Recommendations for promoting health advocacy in postgraduate training include effective integration of health advocacy in the curriculum by providing protected time and resources, providing experiential learning opportunities and fostering a community of practice for physician health advocates."

"Participating medical students reported that they perceived narrative medicine to be an important, effective, but counter-culture means of enhancing communication, collaboration, and professional development. The authors contend that these skills are integral to medical practice, consistent with core competencies"

There is already significant activity in the area of sharing resources in medicine, dentistry and veterinary medicine. This is typically on a sharing amongst limited discipline communities, around a particular area such as assessment and/or on a semi-commercial basis. The OOER project proposes to open up the process to a wider constituency and encourage sharing more openly, as well as reveal existing good practice in medicine, dentistry and veterinary medicine in UK HE.

"As we develop written materials for the general public, we need to think about vocabulary and sentence structure, organization of ideas, as well as layout and design elements so that we can eliminate as many unnecessary barriers as possible."

""After the small group interaction, students overwhelmingly agreed that the exercise was helpful and that the SPs were 'realistic,'" Dessureault says. "They also agreed strongly that the post-interview discussion was the most advantageous feature and that, overall, their knowledge of best practices had increased." "

"This exploratory study showed potential opportunities and pitfalls that Twitter could bring to the e-learning community in higher education. "

While views of medical students fluctuated more during their schooling, the medical students left with slightly more favorable attitudes toward the underserved than those held by departing pharmacy students.