Group items tagged

"This study's findings indicate that rural physicians are routinely confronted with professional boundary issues in everyday situations, and these circumstances do not always reflect those of their urban colleagues. Given the increase in longitudinal immersion clinical clerkship programs to nurture student interest in future rural practice, acknowledgment and acceptance of the nuances of dual relationships and boundary setting in different clinical learning contexts are vital to help students identify their personal needs for privacy and be better prepared to negotiate the realities of rural practice. These findings may inform future medical education initiatives on professional boundary setting as an aspect of professionalism."

"I think it is safe to say that no physician is optimistic about the future of medicine at this point," one participant wrote. Others seemed downright hopeless...the practice of medicine continually gets worse and worse, more intolerable, more onerous, with absolutely no hope or reason for any optimism either in the near or remote future."

Future possibilities for electronic health records in the UK. What are the plans where you live?

BMJ editorial on future NHS ehr

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.

With 2012 coming to an end, we have put together a list of innovative medical and healthcare apps - apps that gave us pause and represent the future of mobile medicine. These apps should also inspire developers and other healthcare providers to think outside the box when developing their own medical apps. Of note, most of the apps mentioned in this compilation are free to download.

"Could it really be true that so many dedicated, brilliant people with the same objectives could be doing exactly the same thing at the same time without sharing their resources? That they could be missing out on the interactions that fuel innovation? That they could put so much work put into teaching sessions that so few actually attend?"

" The potential stress of medical school and residency training will also be addressed, as will a number of prevention strategies. Identifying learners' problems early - and providing guidance from the outset - can be an important investment in the training and development of future health professionals. It is hoped that this Guide will be of help to clinical teachers, program directors and faculty "

"Telecommunication can successfully enhance access to simulation-based instruction. In this study, a Web interface downgraded the quality of student-faculty communication. Future investigation is needed to better understand the impact of such an effect on the learning process and to reduce barriers that impede implementation of technology-facilitated supervision."

"This is the first study of the ICON learning system in undergraduate medical education, a platform designed to facilitate collaboration outside of the classroom. Data on user perceptions and system utilization suggest that both faculty and students chose to adopt this online learning system as a means for collaboration. The study also outlines future avenues for research in assessing novel online technologies."

"These findings suggest that educational interventions can be effective in maintaining and enhancing empathy in undergraduate medical students. In addition, they highlight the need for multicenter, randomized controlled trials, reporting long-term data to evaluate the longevity of intervention effects. Defining empathy remains problematic, and the authors call for conceptual clarity to aid future research."

The "hidden curriculum" refers to medical education as more than simple transmission of knowledge and skills; it is also a socialization process. Wittingly or unwittingly, norms and values transmitted to future physicians often undermine the formal messages of the declared curriculum. The hidden curriculum consists of what is implicitly taught by example day to day, not the explicit teaching of lectures, grand rounds, and seminars. I am increasingly aware of how those of us engaged in family medicine education are blind to it.

"The importance of social and collaborative learning for online continuing medical education (OCME): Directions for future development and research."

"Conclusion: A few areas of debriefing practice where obvious gaps that deserve study were identified, such as comparing debriefing techniques, comparing trained versus untrained debriefers, and comparing the effect of different debriefing venues and times. A model for publication of research data was developed and presented which should help researchers clarify methodology in future work."

"In conclusion, this issue of the journal examines the handoff process across multiple domains, learners and contexts and creates a foundation for further inquiry. Future research should focus on determining best practices for handoff education for all learner levels, demonstrating validity of assessment methods, understanding the patient perspective and objectively measuring patient safety outcomes."

"This toolkit was designed to assist in creating a dialogue among current and future physicians about social media and issues regarding digital literacy and digital professionalism."

One bloggers thoughts on what might help patients in the future

The requirements developed from across 8 different institutions in the original 2005-07 project are given here with tick boxes for departments, schools and institutions to select which aspects of item banking and associated functionality they feel are key to their own current or future processes. The tool will then give match information using the results of appraisal of 12 pieces of software, including some well known software companies e.g. Speedwell and QuestionMark, and some lesser known projects and companies such as TOIA and BTL. The original project was based heavily in medical undergraduate assessment. Note, a 2009 project is due to create and release information relevant to a V2 specification. The V2 will be more generic, building on the information brought forward for V1. UKCDR is a sister project to UMAP, a national collaborative project in the UK for core, applied assessment in undergraduate medicine.

The Internet increasingly serves as a platform for the delivery of public health interventions. The efficacy of Internet interventions has been demonstrated across a wide range of conditions. Much more work remains, however, to enhance the potential for broad population dissemination of Internet interventions. In this article, we examine the effectiveness of Internet interventions, with particular attention to their dissemination potential. We discuss several considerations (characterizing reach rates, minimizing attrition, promoting Web site utilization, use of tailored messaging and social networking) that may improve the implementation of Internet interventions and their associated outcomes. We review factors that may influence the adoption of Internet interventions in a range of potential dissemination settings. Finally, we present several recommendations for future research that highlight the potential importance of better understanding intervention reach, developing consensus regarding Web site usage metrics, and more broadly integrating Web 2.0 functionality.